I'm here in one of the weirdest pieces of land I've ever been flying my drone
over the Indian Ocean.
There's a battle going on out here.
It's not a battle for
land or for people. This is a battle about fish.
One fishermen was killed and five others injured after Sri Lankan Navy opened fire near an island off the
Tamil Nadu coast.
On one side you have Sri Lankan fishermen in these coastal
villages, where fishing is the economic lifeblood. And on the other side you have
their counterparts Indian fishermen in these villages along the southeastern
coast of India.
On a clear day you can see across this
strait, it's only 20 kilometers or so. And out here on the water there's an
invisible line that marks where India's territorial waters end and where Sri Lanka's begin.
Underneath this border there's treasure — not gold, but seafood.
The communities on either side of this strait used to be friends, but now
they're locked in conflict. One side has bigger, faster boats. The other side has a
well-armed Navy equipped with war boats that they're using to patrol this border.
This is the fish war between India and Sri Lanka.
This is Rama's bridge.
You look across, you can see Sri Lanka.
One legend goes that
the Hindu god Rama hired an army of monkey men to build a bridge from India
to Sri Lanka, so that he could go in and rescue his wife from a demon king.
Geology suggests that there indeed may have been a walkable land bridge here,
until a few thousand years ago when it was eroded back into the sea, erasing any
land border between modern-day India and Sri Lanka. The only border that exists
now between India and Sri Lanka is in the water. It was decided on in the '70s
and it looks like this.
This border made it officially illegal for fishermen from
either side to cross over into each other's waters to fish and it was the
start of what would eventually turn into a violent conflict.
"The injured fishermen
have been admitted to a hospital in Rameswaram."
In the 1960s India, was
facing a financial crisis and in response, the government was looking for
new ways to stimulate the economy. So they turned to seafood exports like
prawns. The Indian government gave subsidies to fishermen to buy new boats
so that they could harvest a huge number of prawns, which would feed demand all
over the world. So Indian fishermen in this town of Rameswaram cashed in on
the opportunity, dramatically ramping up their fishing activities with these new
boat is called trawlers which are able to drop nets with heavy weights on them
to rake the bottom of the seabed in search for prawns and other seafood. It's
an incredibly effective method for harvesting fish and shrimp, but these
heavy metal weights rip up the seabed, damaging the sea floor's ecosystem and
this method if uncontrolled depletes fish supplies very quickly. The Indian
fishermen quickly adopted these new boats and soon there were thousands of
these trawlers.
Armed with their new boats and tied to international demand, the Indian
fishermen aggressively fished these waters, tearing up the seafloor and
depleting much of their fisheries. By the late 1970s, the Indian fishermen needed
new waters to fish. This water border had recently been agreed upon by the two
countries, but even still the Indian fishermen began moving across it
illegally fishing in Sri Lankan waters. The massive amount of fishing
contributed to an explosion in seafood exports from India. While India was
cashing in on seafood products from Sri Lankan waters, Sri Lanka was descending
into war.
By the early 1980s, armed rebels were taking over large swaths of land in
the north of the country, trying to create a new country for the oppressed
Tamil people, the ethnic minority group that the residents of these fishing
villages identify with.
"And every day they take an oath pledging to sacrifice
their mind body and soul for Tamil Eelam, a separate state for a separate people."
It descended into a violent, long-lasting civil war that would result in over
150,000 deaths and these fishing villages in Sri Lanka were
caught right in the middle of it.
As a security precaution during the war the Sri Lankan Navy started setting up
security zones in much of the water, banning most fishing activities and
prohibiting boats with motors.
"Beaches once crammed with foreign
tourists are now patrolled by the watchful military."
All of this was done
in an attempt to weaken the Tamil rebels, but the result was a severe gutting of
the economies here, which are totally reliant on fish. The catch in these
districts declined immensely during the war and not only did this affect the
economies, but this fishing ban left Sri Lankan waters open for Indian trawlers
to fish freely.
The violent civil war and the fishing ban in Sri Lanka dragged
on through the '90s and into the early 2000's, allowing the Indian fishermen to
illegally fish these waters with little repercussion. But then everything changed.
"Tamil Tiger fighters retreat from their last stand. For now the fighting seems to
be over." The war ended and the security zones in
the water were lifted. Sri Lankans could fish freely again, breathing new life
into an economy that runs on fish. But as these fishermen went out on their boats
what they found were fleets of Indian trawlers in their waters, tearing up the
sea floor, illegally digging for seafood treasure. And these Sri Lankan fishermen
coming out of a fishing ban and a 25 year civil war, had much smaller weaker boats.
They could never compete.
This is where things really start to heat up.
Sri Lankan Navy, which had previously been fighting a war, now turned its efforts
towards cracking down on Indian fishermen that were poaching in Sri
Lankan waters. The fish wars had begun.
"Naval Command arrested four Indian
fishing poachers in Sri Lanka territorial waters."
"There are mass protests against the killing of this fisherman."
The Sri Lankan Navy came down hard, routinely
arresting Indian fishermen and detaining them, sometimes for years. Many of the
fishermen that I talked to while I was in India routinely go poaching across
the border and many of them said that they had been caught by the Navy.
When the Navy detains the fishermen, they also take their boats. They eventually
released the fishermen, but the boats remain impounded in navy bases around
the country.
Across the strait, this poaching by Indian fishermen has had
deep ramifications in these villages.
Experts estimate that the direct monetary loss to Sri Lankan fishermen
due to Indian poaching is anywhere from 16 to 56 million US dollars per year.
This conflict over seafood has turned two Tamil communities, once allies, into
enemies.
The Indian government has done little to resolve this conflict. They occasionally
step in to free a group of detained fishermen, but none of their actions have
led to a concrete solution to the conflict.
The Indian government, both national and local, seems to be turning a blind eye to
these fishermen's practice of crossing the border.
That's because these
communities are already neglected and underserved by their faraway government.
Stopping a practice that has bolstered their economy for years would create
more disdain and frustration among the people.
So not much is likely to change anytime soon and as the Navy and the fishermen
continue to spar in these waters, the real losers in this situation continue
to be these communities over here.
The people here were barred from fishing during the decades-long civil war and now they have
no chance of competing with their Indian neighbors, who have spent decades
destroying their sea beds and stealing their fish.
This was one of the most interesting places I had ever been,
going to Sri Lanka and the southern coast of India.
Got to see these really interesting places, but also seeing how important fish are to these economies.
But India and Sri Lanka aren't the only places that are affected by the increasing demand for fish.
There are a lot of different places around the world who are dealing with similar issues.
And if you want to learn more about this issue and how it plays out in other countries,
you should check out a documentary series called "Super Fish" from CuriosityStream.
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browse a huge repository of documentaries and nonfiction films
from some of the world's best filmmakers.
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