- Bottom trawlers from India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu have been encroaching Sri Lanka’s northern waters for years, carrying out destructive fishing practices that have caused serious depletion of fish stocks and damaged marine habitats.
- Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s local small-scale fishers continue to struggle due to reduced catches, destruction of their fishing nets and financial loss while being forced to fish in limited nearshore areas or abandon fishing temporarily to avoid conflict with the trawlers.
- In this political bone of contention, Tamil Nadu has been demanding reclamation of Katchatheevu — an uninhabited island between India and Sri Lanka — to gain unrestricted fishing rights, and the past bilateral promises to phase out bottom trawling have gone unfulfilled.
- Sri Lanka banned bottom trawling in 2017 and now needs to take specific actions to prevent illegal bottom trawling in its northern waters to avoid the risk of fisheries there from collapsing.
COLOMBO — The Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar have long served as rich fishing grounds, providing bountiful harvests to Sri Lanka’s northern coastal communities. However, fishing activity in this region was severely restricted during the 27-year-long civil war, which was largely concentrated in the north. When the war ended in 2009, local fishing communities were hopeful of resuming their traditional livelihoods and rebuilding their lives.
But that hope was short-lived.
After the restrictions were lifted, hundreds of mechanized trawlers from the neighboring Indian state of Tamil Nadu started encroaching into Sri Lankan waters, depleting fish stocks via bottom trawling. Trawling is a highly destructive fishing practice that scrapes the seabed, capturing everything in its path.
Depleting fish stock
“As the fish stocks have declined significantly, we now need to put in at least five times more effort to catch the same quantity of fish,” says Mohammed Aalam, a fisherman from Mannar in northern Sri Lanka and the secretary of the northern province fishermen’s union. “Fishing families are facing severe difficulties because of this,” Aalam told Mongabay.
Bottom trawling involves dragging a heavy, cone-shaped net with fine mesh across the ocean floor. The trawlers, which are boats built for low-speed, high-powered hauling, indiscriminately sweep up everything in their path on the seabed. According to independent fisheries consultant Steve Creech, as much as 50 % of a trawl catch comprises juveniles and non-target species which are collectively referred to as bycatch — often dead, wasted and discarded.
“Coral reefs and seagrass beds that are the nurseries of the fish are also ripped apart or flattened entirely by bottom trawling, leading to long-term damage to marine ecosystems in Sri Lankan waters,” Creech told Mongabay.
This issue is especially pressing in the Palk Bay, a shallow sea with an average depth of just 9 meters (30 feet), going to a maximum 15 m (50 ft), where the seabed is easily disturbed. While scientific data on the current status of Palk Bay’s fishery resources is limited, overfishing on the Indian side — primarily due to bottom trawling — has reportedly pushed Indian fishers to cross into Sri Lankan waters, says Ahilan Kadirgamar of the department of sociology in Sri Lanka’s University of Jaffna.
Financial loss
Beyond the ecological destruction, Sri Lankan fishers report additional challenges: Indian trawlers often operate at night, cutting through local fishers’ nets and causing them significant financial loss. To avoid such conflict, some Sri Lankan fishers stay ashore or shift to less profitable nearshore operations. “This is not just an ecological issue — it’s a livelihood issue for small-scale fishers,” Kadirgamar said.
Bottom trawling is controversial in India, too. “Small-scale fishers in India are also affected, as bottom trawlers sweep up most of the catch from the continental shelf and destroy fish habitats,” said Pradip Chatterjee, president of the National Federation of Small-Scale Fish Workers (NFSF) in India. “We advocate for a complete ban on bottom trawling,” Chatterjee told Mongabay.
In 2017, Sri Lanka became the first country in Asia to officially ban bottom trawling and the use of trawl nets. However, the practice remains legal in India. Whatever the method, fishing in Sri Lankan waters without a license is classified as illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing — a violation that Creech said “must be stopped.”
The issue is not only ecological and economic, but also political and territorial. The Indian Navy and Coast Guard typically do not intervene to stop vessels, while the Sri Lanka Navy routinely arrests Indian trawlers.
Arrests of Indian fishers
According to the Sri Lanka Navy, during the first three months of 2025 alone, 20 Indian trawlers and 148 fishers were arrested. They often get released soon due to political pressure from India.
The issue has become so politicized that the Tamil Nadu state government recently passed a resolution urging India’s central government to reclaim Katchatheevu, a small uninhabited island ceded to Sri Lanka in 1974. Analysts argued that regaining Katchatheevu would allow Tamil Nadu to assert greater fishing access in Sri Lankan waters.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Sri Lanka provided an opportunity to address the issue. Both governments reaffirmed their commitment to resolving the matter through dialogue and cooperation, emphasizing humanitarian considerations and the protection of livelihoods.
However, past promises have fallen short. In 2016, India agreed to phase out bottom trawling within two years following a series of discussions between officials from both countries. “But nothing came of it as it just turned out to be a broken promise, and the destruction continues,” Aalam said.
Given the political sensitivities, Chatterjee said he believes the solution lies in grassroots diplomacy. “There should be a dialogue between the small-scale fisher communities on both sides. These communities understand the real issues and can jointly propose sustainable solutions to both governments,” he said.
Globally, there is growing pressure to ban bottom trawling. In a recent statement, Greenpeace compared bottom trawling to deforestation: “When you bulldoze a forest, you don’t just remove trees — you destroy an entire ecosystem. The same is happening in our oceans, only it’s out of sight and, sadly, out of mind.”
“The time has come to prioritize sustainable fishing models that support the welfare of coastal communities,” said Anita Perera, regional campaigner for Greenpeace South Asia. “We must also explore transboundary, community-led management systems to protect the ecosystems we all rely on,” she said.
To add to it, India’s NFSF has proposed designating the Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar as small-scale fisheries reserves. Under this proposal, small-scale fisher communities from both Sri Lanka and India would jointly manage the fisheries, set norms for sustainable fishing, and monitor compliance — facilitated by their respective governments.
While Sri Lanka has managed to protect nearly 30% of its terrestrial ecosystems, it has fallen far short in safeguarding its marine environments, said Eric Wickramanayake. “Currently, our marine protected areas cover only about 1% — and even these are limited to small, degraded and highly isolated coral reefs and some mangrove patches,” he said.
Marine conservation
As an island nation, Sri Lanka must adopt a more ambitious and visionary approach to marine conservation, he added. “We should aim to become a leader in South Asia by setting higher targets for marine protection,” he said, proposing the designation of Sri Lanka’s entire Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) as a ‘Mega Marine Peace Park.’
Such a large-scale marine protected area (MPA), he explained, would enable effective zoning and the promotion of sustainable fishing practices while balancing ecological protection with livelihoods and economic goals across the marinescape. Importantly, it could also help address cross-border illegal fishing by Tamil Nadu trawlers in Sri Lankan waters.
“The issue of illegal bottom trawling demands urgent action,” Wickramanayake said. “If we fail to act soon, we risk the collapse of these fisheries — leaving everyone worse off.”
Banner image: A mechanized trawler from Tamil Nadu, South India, was detained for entering Sri Lankan waters and for engaging in bottom trawling. Image courtesy of the Sri Lanka Navy.
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This story first appeared on Mongabay
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