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Old
vessels make protest noise The vessel, which has been in the care of the Navy, is to be handed over to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse at a ceremony in Galle, but the Fisheries Ministry, which gives the seaworthy certificate to the vessel, is unaware of plans to provide training to fishermen. The 55-metre vessel, Simon Kéghian, with a storage capacity of 500 tons was sent to Sri Lanka along with loads of food items, medicine and clothes following an initiative by Association Lorientase Les Amis Ceylan, a new NGO which maintains links with a newly setup Sri Lankan NGO Lorient-Matara Friendship Association. The local organisation has Prime Minister Rajapakse, Deputy Minister Chandrasiri Gajadheera and a top businessman among its patrons. Mr. Gajadheera, who was present at the ceremony to mark the hand over of the vessel at the Galle harbour, told The Sunday Times that he believed that the vessel could be used to train fishermen on how to engage in deep sea fishing, making use of its sophisticated equipment. The vessel could also be used to produce and provide ice for other fishermen at mid-sea and it can also store the catch of other fishing vessels. The deputy minister said there were also plans to use it on a tourism project with tourists being offered deep-sea voyages. But environmentalists have expressed fears that the vessel could do more harm than good in the long run because large-scale fishing would lead to a depletion of fishing resources. They point out that this was one of the reasons the vessel was decommissioned under strict EU regulations. Mr. Gajadheera also admitted this, but said, "Our fishermen can learn new techniques'. Association Lorientase Les Amis Ceylan Coordinator Upul Deva Surendra told The Sunday Times the decommissioned vessel was owned by a French fishing company and was donated to their NGO following the tsunami. He said the vessel would not be used for deep-sea fishing but local fishermen would be trained to make use of its other facilities such as filleting. Despite claims that the vessel would be used for training fishermen, Fisheries Minister Chandrasena Wijesinghe says he is not aware of any such move. "We have not been informed about this vessel. We are not even sure who brought this down. We should have been consulted," the Minister said. Fisheries Ministry's Director General M. Piyasena said he knew about the vessel only through the newspapers. "The normal procedure is permission is obtained from the ministry if a vessel is brought down for fishing purposes," he said. However, The Sunday Times learns that the Fisheries Ministry has no intention of pursuing the matter any further. Meanwhile, environmental groups have warned that a European Union proposal to send decommissioned fishing boats to tsunami-hit countries could do more harm than good. The European Union announced in January that it planned to transfer some 1,100 decommissioned fishing boats between five and 20 years old to the seven countries hit hardest by the catastrophe -- India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Civil society groups have expressed concern that the EU proposals will have further disastrous effects on local fishing communities. They say the proposal does not specify who will receive the boats and who will have control over the catch. |
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