KARACHI, March 22: A latest report issued by the ActionAid International says that the fishermen communities in Pakistan are being pushed into poverty due to over-fishing by international trawlers.

The report — Taking the Fish — claims that poor fishermen communities in developing countries can be devastated by moves to open up fishing markets as part of the latest WTO talks.

Pakistan fishermen groups say trawlers from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan encroach on their local waters and use giant fishing nets to scoop up and deplete fish stocks under Pakistan’s policy of opening up its waters to international fleets. Coastal communities say their right to fish is being violated.

The report quotes Tahira Ali of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) in Karachi who says, “The people are starving and they do not have bread to eat and they weep when they come home without fish at night.”

According to the report, rogue trawlers are accused of using damaging nets and of indiscriminately catching and dumping huge quantities of juvenile, unwanted, or dead fish at sea--leaving less for the locals to catch.

“The trawlers have nets of one to three kilometres in length and the mouth of the net is equal to three American “Statues of Liberties”, says Mohammad Ali Shah, PFF chairman. They catch all types of fish, and when they sort them 90 per cent is discarded.

The report says some 90, 000 tonnes of fish caught off the coast of Pakistan were exported to China, Japan, the Middle East, Sri Lanka, Germany, the US and the UK during 2004.

Aftab Alam Khan, head of ActionAid’s trade campaign says, “Pakistan’s fisherfolk go to bed hungry because of predatory trawlers moving in as a result of country’s drive for more trade and exports.”

“This case highlights the appalling affects on poor people of unfairly opening up fishing markets. The government must urgently protect the rights of coastal communities.”

ActionAid warns there are moves to cut fish tariffs in the WTO talks, resulting in increased exports and further depletion of fish stocks. Rich nations must ditch their aggressive plans on fish tariffs at the WTO, otherwise the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of poor fisherfolk could be jeopardised, said Alex Wijeratna , ActionAid campaigner and author of the report.