Asia Times: Nighttime trawling troubles Thai fishermen



	July 21, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Nighttime trawling troubles Thai fishermen
By Boonthan Sakanond

BANGKOK - At night, it's common to see hundreds of brightly lit fishing trawlers offsouthern Thailand searching for a slippery but valuable commodity - anchovies.

But now small fishermen are demanding an end to such nighttime anchovy fishing, which utilizes huge spotlights, citing what they say is the indiscriminate destruction of fish stock and other marine life by large-scale anchovy fishing operators.

The protests, now nearly two months old, have snowballed into amajor show of anger against Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai's rulingDemocrat Party, whose traditional power base lies in southernThailand. The Chuan administration has imposed a temporary ban on nighttime trawling. Butunder pressure from influential anchovy fishing operators, it hasbalked at permanently banning the practice.

In mid-July, about 1,000 protesters from seven southerndistricts took to the streets of Hat Yai on the Thai-Malaysianborder, denouncing the Democrat-led government for lackingsincerity in dealing with the issue. They claimed the temporary ban on the use of lights in anchovy fishing was not a solution to the problem, and demanded apermanent ban on nighttime anchovy fishing by large trawlersequipped with lights and fine-mesh nets.

Their agitation, which began last year, has found support amongdomestic and international environmental groups. ''The ban [on nighttime anchovy fishing] is not only a just act for small-scale fishermen but also means the preservation ofmarine ecology, both in Thailand and the region,'' said a letterto the Thai prime minister from Trilo Bode, an executive directorof Greenpeace International.

At the heart of the conflict is the contention of smallfishermen and their supporters that commercial trawlers, whilehunting for the small, silvery anchovy, unwittingly destroylarge quantities of young fish stock by attracting them usingspotlights and catching them with fine-mesh nets.

The small-scale fishermen describe this equipment as''devastating'' to marine life. They say the lights and fine-mesh nets catch immature fishbefore they have a chance to grow, lay eggs and reproduce. The use ofsuch equipment, they say, is unfair to both the environment andsmall-scale fishermen.

It is estimated that one boat equipped with lights and thin nets can catch about10 tons of fish per night and that 40 percent of the fish caught are notanchovy at all but grouper, mackerel and other species.

Small-scale fishermen complain that since the large anchovytrawlers moved from eastern provinces to Songkhla last year, fishand marine life has rapidly decreased, resulting in a drop intheir incomes. In addition, Thai fisheries officials have indicated that apart fromdestroying other fish stock, commercial trawlers using spotlightshave also been over-fishing anchovy stock, which has lead to a seriousdepletion since 1992.

The total amount of anchovy provided every year by the Gulf ofThailand is estimated at some 200,000 tons with the appropriatelevel of fish that can be caught being 60 percent of the total. Thai officials say anchovy-fishing operators have been catching fish at the rate of 150,000 to 160,000 tons a year.

Anchovy fishing operators claim that the real cause of depletion of coastal fish is the fact that ''there are too many anchovies that are consuming other species.'' By catchinganchovies in large numbers, operators argue, they are ''helping to maintain the balance of the marine food chain."

Marine biologists and others find this argument specious, pointing out that there is no evidence to back the claim that anchovy are responsible for destroying stock of other marine species. ''There is greater evidence that anchovy fishing trawlers havebeen over-fishing and making the natural replacement of bothanchovy and other species unsustainable,'' noted Dr. Surapol Sudara,a marine expert with the Bangkok-based Chulalongkorn University'sFaculty of Science.

In response to the growing number of protests by smallfishermen, the Thai government in early July announced a temporaryban until the end of October this year on nighttime anchovyfishing. It announced new zoning measures to prevent conflictsbetween different groups of fishermen.

According to the Thai Ministry of Agriculture, three zones willbe established for different categories of fishermen and fishingmethods. Fishing within five kilometers of the shore will be reservedfor local fishermen. The area five to 12 kilometers from the shoreline will befor small-scale commercial fishing, and the area beyond 12 kilometers willbe for large-scale fishing.

''Anchovy fishing is significant to the Thai economy. Thegovernment does not want to have a policy to ban it altogether,but rather to control it. So it has announced short-term measuresto minimize harm to the environment,'' Agriculture MinisterPongpol Adireksarn was quoted as saying by the Thai media.

The government has also set up a committee to investigate theclaims of damage to marine life by commercial anchovy trawlersbefore considering any long-term decision.

Supporters of a permanent ban cite the case of inland-shrimpcultivation, which the government banned last year followingprotests from farmers who claimed that water polluted withchemicals used to maintain shrimps was seeping into their fieldsand destroying crops.

Despite intense lobbying by shrimp producers, the government wentahead with the ban, thus fulfilling a long-standing demand by bothenvironmentalists and farmers.

In the case of commercial anchovy trawlers, however, environmentalactivists fear that the government may succumb to pressure fromthe wealthier trawler operators and try to find a compromise. ''The issue is not just about small-scale fishermen but about the sustainability of marine life. There can be no compromise,'' says a representative of the Marine Resource Conservation Group,a non-government organization supporting the demands of small fishermen in Songkhla.

(Inter Press Service)

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©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.

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