KARACHI, Feb 8: Fishermen of the country have urged the government to cancel the licences issued to deep-sea fishing trawlers.

The fishermen from fishing villages of Karachi under the banner of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) organized a demonstration in front of the Karachi Press Club on Saturday.

The Chairman of the PFF, Mohammad Ali Shah, said that the government had cancelled the licences of big trawlers in September last after criticism by the local fishermen. “But the bureaucracy has recently restored the licences which is a conspiracy against the fishermen,” he said.

Under the deep-sea fishing policy, the government has allowed foreign trawlers to fish outside the 12-nautical-mile limit, which is reserved for local fishermen. These trawlers violate the limit and enter the 12-nautical-mile zone.

Mr Shah pointed out that these trawlers were fishing in Pakistani waters and destroying fishes, rendering the local fishermen jobless.

He said due to the policy about two million fishermen had been rendered jobless because the fishing trawlers use 3km-long nets and catch even smaller fishes. They later dump the smaller and dead fish in the open sea which also create environmental pollution.

Moreover, Mr Shah said, under the fishing policy, these trawlers were bound to unload their catch at Pakistani fish harbours, and then export their products, but most of these big trawlers offload the catch at other countries’ ports.

Under the new policy, deep-sea has been divided into three zones: Zone-1 from zero to 12 nautical mile; zone-2 from 12 to 35 nautical miles, and zone-3 from 35 to 200 nautical miles.

He said zone-1 was exclusively reserved for the Pakistani fishing boats. Earlier, he said, local fishing boats were allowed to fish in zone-1 and 2.

He regretted that now zone-2 was also opened to fishing trawlers because, according to the policy, the local fishermen were not able to exploit fishing in the zone.—APP