Differences have arisen between aid agencies about the need to transport new and second hand fishing vessels to Sri Lanka to restore its fishing fleet following last Christmas tsunami disaster.
In conjunction with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Fisheries and following advise from the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Irish aid agency GOAL decided that only in exceptional circumstances it would purchase boats outside Sri Lanka and bring them to the island, GOAL's programme manager for Sri Lanka, Jonathan Edgar, told World Fishing: "Where possible GOAL is setting up boatyards that repair and re-construct two types of fishing boats, 'multi-day' and 'day'. GOAL has started replicating the boatyards in Ampara and Hambantota."
Mr Edgar explained that both the Sri Lankan government and FAO were concerned that the aid effort to restore the fishing industry should not lead to a further destabilising the balance between capacity, effort and stocks. In particular the Sri Lankans wished also to see its own boat building capacity restored and local fishermen not becoming dependant on imported boats, said Mr Edgar.
Another consideration, he added, was that the Sri Lankan government wanted to reduce the number of canoes with outboards that fished in the closest inshore waters leading to overfishing and preferred instead to see more boats that could go further into sea like the 'multi-day' vessel. "Before the tsunami the fisheries ministry had wanted to reduce canoe fishing by 20 per cent and the tsunami has not changed that policy."
But it would take up to seven months to build the 800 six metre day boats needed and Sri Lankan fishermen could not wait that long, said Alan Glanville of Dunmore Marine Supply Company of Co Waterford, Ireland. Instead he supported a campaign to have GRP 6m boats built by StarLine of Santiago de Chile, the largest builder of GRP vessels in South America, where six boats have been ordered and already three delivered.
To date GOAL has spent €500,000 on fisheries programmes in Sri Lanka. Its flagship programme in Matara is a 'mobile' boatyard that employs local workers to repair multi-day fishing boats.
Already, over 150 boats have been returned to the water.
