Fisheries Administration and Lagislation

Unit 7 - Laws relating inland fisheries

7.3.Broad guidelines for inland fisheries legislation
Inland Fisheries Policy: Any activity conducted to harvest or remove fish and other aquatic organisms from inland waters.
Capture Fisheries: Harvesting or removal of aquatic organisms, such as fish, prawn, crabs and other animal or plant organisms from natural or enhanced inland waters. It operates on the resources of the commons, open to all unless restricted by the governments.
Culture-based Fisheries: Capture fisheries, where stocks of target species are maintained by stocking, externally.
Aquaculture: Farming of any aquatic organism, such as fish, shell fish (crustaceans), molluscs and aquatic plants under controlled or semi-controlled aquatic regime.
Tank: Relatively small (<10 ha) irrigation impoundments created arresting the surface runoff, which have structures above ground and high water turnover.
Reservoir: An impoundment created on account of the damming across a river or a stream or such surface runoffs, with water area of 10 or more hectares.

Control, regulation and ban on destructive Crafts and Gears

• No person fisher-folk or otherwise shall be allowed to use non-selective small-meshed gears of any kind for catching fingerlings, juveniles or larvae of fish other, which affect the stock or species or are against the prescribed norms of responsible fishery including minimum legal size of capture.
• Mechanized boats fitted with out-board engines affecting the ecosystem or fish biodiversity in any form shall be regulated or banned.
• Cross nets, such as stake-nets, bag-nets etc., which encroach or affect the migratory pathways of fish and other organisms, shall not be allowed.
• The authorized fishery officer shall have the authority to monitor and check the type of gears and crafts that are used in an open-water ecosystem for catching fish and imposing suitable penalty for violating the normal prescribed in (1), (2) and (3) mentioned above.

Untenable fishing practices in inland waters

• Wanton killing of fish juveniles, fish brooders and other organisms, which otherwise have economic, aesthetic or biodiversity overtones, and affects the ecosystem health, shall be treated as cognizable offence and shall be dealt with appropriately. A penalty of Rs.5000 or six months imprisonments or both can be awarded depending upon the gravity of offence.
• Mass killing of fish and associated fauna using poison, plant origin or synthetic, dynamite and so on shall be treated as a punishable act with a penalty of Rs.10,000 or one year imprisonment or both.

Sale or transportation of fish killed or caught using poison should strictly be prohibited on precautionary grounds to avoid risk on Human Health.

Encroachment/reclamation of Inland open-waters

• Encroachment or reclamation of Rivers, Lakes and Wetlands, either for arable land or human habitation or any other purposes, which leads to colossal loss of aquatic resource and associated utility functions, shall be deemed as a criminal act attracting non-bailable warrant from competent authority and punished, accordingly. Compartmentalization or establishment of structures of any form, except otherwise done in public interest, within the lake/ wetland/lagoon waters and up to 100 m from banks for any purpose, such as creation of ‘gheries’ in lagoons for shrimp farming or practicing ‘phung’ fishery in floodplain wetlands or their local variants shall be deemed as cognizable offence.
  

• Encroaching the lake/wetland/lagoon area by dumping solid wastes thereby reducing the effective water area besides impairing the water quality shall be treated as an act against the state, as such punishable under the bill.

Conservation of Stock and Resources
The State shall issue or notify guidelines on specific issues and for specific resource, as under, and in accordance with the local condition, environmental considerations, economic reasons and social implications.
Rivers:

• The State shall adopt precautionary approach to regulate the applications of gears through periodical surveillance or sudden check to fishing individuals or party so as to protect the (target) fish species of commercial value from over-fishing or fishing at undesirable size.
• The State shall conduct periodical survey, surveillance, monitoring and census to prepare inventory of fishing gears and crafts to keep a watch on their rational and responsible use.
• The State shall educate and encourage the fishing community to protect the non-target species too as precautionary major so as to conserve the ecological elasticity of the system.
• The State shall notify closed season or fishing holidays for 60 days during breeding season to augment auto-stocking and killing of fish brooders.
• The State shall maintain, monitor and protect the deep-pools in various river stretches by declaring them protected areas and encourage the active participation of fishers, cooperatives, local panchayats and NGOs to conserve fish germplam and other biodiversity.
• The State shall maintain or supplement the depleted stock of target fish species through river ranching with fish seed bred from riverine fish stocks. Under no circumstances, farm bred seeds shall be stocked to avoid genetic erosion.
• The riparian States, either singly or jointly or in collaboration with voluntary organisations and other stakeholders shall create mass awareness among the locals in general and fishers in particular towards the importance of the conservation of riverine habitats and biodiversity.
• The State shall monitor and keep a strict watch on the point sources of pollution in rivers, which affect the ecosystem quality and biodiversity, and enforce the Polluter-Pays principle as stipulated by OECD of FAO.
• The State shall enact a Law for minimum water flow down-stream any dam, or barrage or check-dams or such obstructions across rivers and streams for safe maintenance of aquatic environment, fisheries and biodiversity.
• A Memorandum of Understanding shall be signed to reach to some workable agreement among the riparian states under whose administrative units a river system falls.

Reservoirs:

• The State shall issue notification for close season or fishing-holiday for two months during the breeding season.
• The State shall declare the lotic sector of a reservoir including the tail end of the river as highly sensitive and protected area during the breeding season and no activity with the potential to hamper the breeding process be banned.
• The State shall enforce size regulation on fish catch (not less than 1.5 kg for IMC) and application of mesh regulated gears so as to conserve the breeding population in sizeable number.
• The State shall prohibit or regulate the operation of small meshed Seine net, during summer, especially in small reservoirs, to conserve the matured brooders.
• The State shall strictly monitor and prohibit the exotic species with prolific breeding habit, such as tilapia, to build or conserve the stocks of economically viable fish species like major carps.
• The State shall ensure the minimum required level of water in reservoirs, especially during lean season, for the safe maintenance of biotic communities including fish and fisheries besides the water quality.
• {A working group drawing representatives from various user groups, such as irrigation, agriculture, fisheries and environment may be formed for its implementation.

Estuaries/ Lagoons:

• Regulation of Mechanized Boats/Vessels
• Regulation of efforts to avoid over-fishing of target species
• Regulation of destructive mode of fishing or use of destructive nets, which affects the stock and recruitment from sea or otherwise.
• Protection of the interest of traditional fishers using traditional crafts and gears
• Encroachment in the lagoon area for aquaculture
• Creation of mass awareness among the locals in general and fishers in particular towards the importance of the conservation of habitats and biodiversity.