December 15, 2010
All stakeholders should come forward to promote sustainable use of fish resources. This was stated by the Director General Sindh Fisheries Ghulam Mohammad Mahar at seminar organized by Indus for All Programme, WWF at Keti Bunder. He said that government is making all efforts to discourage use of banned nets, which are having negative impacts on fish resources. He said that fishermen community should voluntarily disband the banned nets and instead should use legal nets, which allows juvenile fish to grow. Mahar said that fishermen earn their livelihood from centuries thorough traditional fishing methods and if use of illegal nets is not stopped immediately, they are bound to lose their livelihood. He added that government is promoting crab and shrimp farming in Thatta and Badin and in this regard 20,000 acres land has been acquired to establish farms. He added that Karachi is huge market adjacent to Thatta, which needs to be capitalized for fisheries. He said that in Keti Bunder reverse osmosis plant has been established to provide potable water.
The Programme Coordinator WWF Nasir Ali Panhwar said that rich agricultural lands in Indus delta have now become saline by sea intrusion, as the flow of fresh water from river Indus is no more available. He added that as a result communities depending on agriculture turned to fisheries. He said that this rapid turnover of people to fisheries made high stress over the fish stock. The trend of overfishing created unsustainable methods of fishing practices, which ultimately had to be banned by the government. Panhwar said that WWF is working closely with the communities in Keti Bunder to encourage fisherfolk to abandon banned nets.
Site Managers WWF Ghulam Rasool Khatri and Hafeezullah while giving background of the initiative said that cold storage tanks have already been provided to fishermen to reduce the fish losses. They said that with the support of community crab pond has also been established. They said that beneficiary community would plant mangroves in their area. On this occasion two boats, three engines and five legal nets were handed over to fishermen of village Bhori of Khobar Creek.
Director Sindh Coastal Community Development Project Khawar Pervez Awan, Deputy Project Director BBSYD Aslam Jarwar, Akhtar Samoo of Coastal Community Development Project also spoke at the occasion.
For further Information:
Muhammad Zafar Khan
Manager Communications and Environmental Education
Contact: 0300-3495901
email: zafar.hilbi@gmail.com
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