Sustainable fisheries management through community based monitoring of iuu fishing along the sindh coast, arabian sea in north indian ocean, Pakistan

Fishery plays a significant role in the national economy of Pakistan. Pakistan’s marine fishery resources include 250 demersal fish species, 50 small pelagic fish species, 15 medium-sized pelagic species and 20 large pelagic fish species. In addition, there are also 15 commercial species of shrimps, 12 of cephalopod and 5 of lobsters. With Arabian Sea coastline of about 990 km, Pakistan has rich fishery resources that are threatened by Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, industrial fishing, municipal wastes and untreated industrial effluents. Most of the population of the coastal areas of Sindh and Baluchistan provinces of Pakistan depends on fisheries for livelihood as 300,000 strong traditional Sindhi fishing community famous for employing sustainable fishing practices are engaged in low tech artisanal fishing. The livelihood and sustainability of this traditional fishing community is threatened not only by over fishing but by continued IUU fishing.

The paper will highlight the challenges to the sustainability of Arabian Sea fishing, which is further jeopardized by poor law enforcement capacity and/or low priority of Pakistani agencies coupled with heavy shipping and global oil tanker traffic originating from Persian Gulf and oil rich Middle East. The sustainability of fishing is further compromised by the illegal fishing by foreign vessels from Far East Asian countries, often routinely found fishing in Pakistani maritime jurisdiction, thereby challenging the capacity and will of the relevant Pakistani agencies like Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) and Pakistan Coast Guards (PCG).

Among these agencies the PMSA, under the administrative control of Ministry of Defense (MOD) is tasked with the responsibility of protecting the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Pakistan which is up 350 NM (290,000 square Km) in the international waters and has jurisdiction in both domestic and international waters, including the operation in deep sea. Whereas, PCG is charged and mandated to protect the coastal areas of Baluchistan and Sindh provinces of Pakistan through littoral patrolling along 990 Km Pakistani coast line from the Indian coast in the East to Iranian coast in the west, in north Arabian Sea.