NEW DELHI, April 9: Even as the US and many Asian countries including India are engaged in a bruising trade battle over import ban of shrimps on environmental grounds, a small, coastal voluntary organisation in Orissa has begun to remove the root cause of the problem.Project Swarajya, with help from United Nations Development Programme, is training local fishermen and trawler owners in the use of turtle excluder devices (TEDs) so that the trapped amphibians can escape from nets cast to harvest shrimp. The US imposed a ban on shrimps' import from countries that do not require their fishermen to protect endangered sea turtles in May 1996.
Early this week, the World Trade Organisation ruled that a ban on wild shrimp imports caught without the use of so-called TEDs violates international trade rules. India has hailed this decision, but the US along with other international environmental groups like the Worldwide Fund for Nature are calling the decision shortsighted.
Oblivious to all this posturing, ProjectSwarajya, approached the US government's National Marine Fisheries Services and got them to train their workers in the use of simple mechanical version of TEDs. The device is a simple grid like structure made of steel or iron with a flap and is attached to the fishing net. The flap allows the turtle to escape while fish and shrimp pass through the spaces into the bag of the net.
One of the problems associated with TEDs the loss of fish catch to the order of nearly 10 to 15 per cent. In view of this Swarajya is planning to inform the trawling community of ecological importance of sea turtles.
The Olive Ridley is most populous of the endangered varieties of turtles found in the Indian waters which also have green hawksbill, leatherback, and flatback. The Gahirmatha beach of the Orissa coast is the by far the largest rookery of Olive Ridley sea turtles.
The amphibian surfaces from deep water occasionally to breathe, and to visit its native beach for breeding once a year, and this puts it in great danger.They get trapped in nets and to save their nets the trawler crew plunge sharp edged forceps into the eyes of the live turtles, drag it out and throw it into the sea.
With the use of TEDs such practices will be a thing of the past. The state government's too have done their bit to save the creatures. The Gahirmatha turtle rookery and its adjacent areas have been declared a Marine Turtle Sanctuary with fishing and allied activities banned in the area during mating, breeding and hatching periods.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
