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Sri Lanka, April 24 -- Unable to swim with a ruptured swim bladder, fish injured by an underwater concussive blast slowly sink to the bottom of the sea. (Image courtesy of Dharshana Jayawardena)
In 2020, six people from Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, India were arrested by the Ramanathapuram Police for attempting to smuggle around 5000 explosive materials similar to gelatin sticks, purportedly for blast fishing. According to a Times of India report, one of the groups was contacted by a fisherman from Sri Lanka. Police investigations revealed that the suspects were anticipating gold or other valuable items instead of money in exchange to the smuggled explosives. While many such explosives including detonators are being manufactured in Tamil Nadu and are being smuggled by boats to be distributed among Sri Lankan fishermen, incidents of dynamite fishing or blast fishing along the Sri Lankan coastal belt has increased by manifold over the recent past, posing a threat to unique maritime ecosystems.
History of blast fishing
Hundreds of dead fish lying at the bottom of the sea bed off the Trincomalee coastline were caught on camera recently, proving the devastating effect of blast fishing. Speaking about the history of dynamite fishing in Sri Lanka, Arjan Rajasuriya, former Marine biologist at the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA) said that dynamite fishing was done in a small scale using a catamaran during the 1950s and 1960s.
"People put dynamite in areas where larger shoals of fish would gather and later go about picking floating fish in the sea. Blast fishing is common off the shores of the southern coastline including areas such as Rumassala and Trincomalee. It later expanded to shipwrecks where people would use dynamite to collect scrap iron from shipwrecks off Galle for example in places such as Gintota," said Rajasuriya.
But divers and marine experts observe that blast fishing has expanded into an organized operation. "Blast fishing is now more prevalent off the shores of Gulf of Mannar, Arippu, Silavaturai and Vankalai, Vidathalthivu, the Northern side of Mannar, Punkudithivu - between Delft and Punkudithivu, Nilaveli, Kuchchaveli, near Fort Fredrick, Batticaloa, Vakarai, Mankerni, a little bit of dynamiting happens in Kalmunai, and then again around Hikkaduwa, Gintota and Boossa. The issue with blast fishing is that...