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Govt. to empower Coastguard, Navy and Fisheries Dept. officials
“The officers will be given adequate powers to order the skipper or the captain to enable inspection of vessels, including foreign vessels, in mid-sea, before entering Lankan waters,” Ministry Secretary Mrs.W.M.M.R.Adikari told the Sunday Times. A proposal giving effect to this has already been submitted to the Cabinet for approval.
The authorised officers are permitted to scrutinise documents in any vessel, including foreign vessels, in mid-sea, which wants to unload at a local harbour .
When local fishermen venture into the open sea for fishing, they will be required to have a proper licence issued by the Director General of the Fisheries Department for high sea fishing, possess licensed gear, transponders and other equipment. Above all they will be inspected to ascertain whether they are engaging in any illegal fishing activities.
The penalty for offences has also increased significantly from Rs 50,000 to five million rupees for a 75 metre length vessel.
The move to bring in new amendments and regulations came as one of the 57 conditions put forward by the EU for Sri Lanka to be listed as a cooperating country that fights against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
Secretary Ms. Adikari said that though the ban was lifted it would take at least three months to resume export of fisheries products to EU countries as the European Parliament has to get approval from its 28 Member States.
At least two more regulatory mechanisms are to be gazetted in the coming weeks to regulate the import and export of fisheries products to EU countries.
One of them will enable Sri Lanka to import fisheries products from non-IUU countries listed by the EU and re-export products from here after processing to boost the value of the fisheries products.
“ These two gazettes are cleared by the Legal Draftsman’s Department but we are planning to hold talks with all stake holders before we present them. A meeting is scheduled to be held in the near future with representatives of the private sector, Customs, Ports Authority and Import and Export Control Departments,” Secretary Adikarai said adding the Government is hoping regain the EU market for Lankan fisheries products it nearly lost.
In addition to barring local fishermen working in an IUU listed country, other regulatory mechanism will prohibit the sale or transfer of vessels and other technical equipment to IUU listed country.
Appreciating the Government’s efforts taken to revoke the ban, Seafood Exporters Association of Sri Lanka (SEASL) president Prabhash Subasinghe told the Sunday Times that he believes that Lanka’s fish export business will be back on track in Europe by July.
“This is an incredible achievement for the Government to have addressed the pending issues within such a short span of time. For the first time, a high level steering committee was formed between the Government of Sri Lanka and the private sector to monitor the progress in the removal of the ban, just six days after Ranil Wickremesinghe took office as Prime Minister,” Mr. Subasinghe said.
On Thursday the EC recommended the lifting of the ban on fisheries exports from Sri Lanka to the European Union (EU) countries.
Karmenu Vella, European Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, said that Sri Lanka has now a robust legal and policy framework to fight illegal fishing activities.
Rodney Perera, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the EU who played a significant role in negotiations and coordination between fisheries bureaucrats from both sides, said the next step is for the EC decision on Sri Lanka to be submitted for final approval of the European Council.
“This process is expected to take at least two to three months as decisions of this nature are subject to what is known as a process which entails each member country consulting its respective national legislature for concurrence of decisions taken by the Council. While many countries have a fast track approach to it, several EU states such as UK, France, Denmark and Italy take up to between 6 and 8 weeks to conclude this mandatory consultative process,” he said.