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Coastal fish catch from Third World falling

Our Bureau

KOCHI, Nov. 26

WHILE there are bounteous resources in the open oceans and deep seas, the threat of fall in catch from the coastal waters is becoming a harsh reality to several developing countries.

``Reflecting the magnitude of this threat, the world's fish production which had been consistently growing for decades has registered a fall of four per cent to 117 tonnes in 1998'', Dr S. Subasinghe, Director of the Kuala Lumpur-based Infofish, said.

And most of the fall would be from the shrinking production from the coastal tropical waters of the developing countries, he said.

The fall in global production would have been even more severe, but for the surging production from aquaculture farms which helped mask the true extent of fall from the tropical waters. The impact would sooner or later manifest on countries like India wh ich has a billion dollar seafood export industry and millions of people depending on the sea for their livelihood.

With the Third World countries increasingly focussing on shrimp production and exports, Dr Subasinghe said Infofish would be organising the next `Shrimp 2001' in Chennai, possibly around September next year, in association with the Marine Products Export Development Authority and the Seafood Exporters Association of India. He expected around 450 delegates from around the world to participate in the conference.

According to preliminary fishery statistics available from the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), global fish production fell from 122 million tonnes in 1997 to 117 m.t. in 1998. Due to extensive over-fishing and unsustainable production practices , catch from the fertile fishing grounds off the temperate waters of the West had begun to fall by mid-eighties. Now the same threat seems to be gripping the seas of developing countries as well. However, Dr Subasinghe said in the case of several countr ies such as India, the harvest could have reached the carrying capacity of the neighbouring seas and it was imperative that these countries pursued scientific and sustainable harvesting practices.

While the shift should be more from the coastal to off-shore waters, tapping the immense potential of aquaculture should enable these countries to sustain the growth in fish production in the years to come, he said.

The total international trade in fish during 1997 was as high as $51.4 billion. India's share in the global trade continued to remain very low, just around $1 billion. Almost 46 m.t. of fish products hit the international trade, accounting for close to 3 7 per cent of the total fish landings world-wide. Infofish will always help individual countries to develop and expand its market base. Regarding Asia, Dr Subasinghe said it was time that the countries of the region started looking more inward for their markets. While there had been growing production from countries such as India, the demand from South East Asian markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan had been registering a significant growth.

He said producing countries of Asia should not be solely dependent on the markets of Japan, EU or the US. Instead they should also capitalise on the growing potential in neighbouring countries. This would not only diversify their market, help in utilisin g their varied production base, but also ensure that they enjoyed a premium price.

This would also lead to better technology utilisation. Dr Subasinghe pointed to the steady volume but higher value of exports from Vietnam and said that they employed low cost yet appropriate technology to add value to their exports.