Install transponders in all fishing vehicles to save Olive Ridleys in Odisha, says HC

The Orissa Excessive Court docket directed the state authorities March 16, 2021 to set up transponders in all mechanised fishing vessels to trace their actions and save Olive Ridley sea turtles from fishing nets.

The excessive courtroom additionally requested the Authorities of India to increase its cooperation within the matter.

The courtroom directed that the next measures instructed within the report of the panel constituted to look into the concern must be instantly put in place by the state: 

1. The prohibition of fishing actions by trawlers within the space of the Devi river mouth (Keluni Muhan to New Devi Nasi Island North) in response to the November 12, 2014 notification of the fisheries and animal assets division must be strictly enforced, with the assistance of the three marine police stations inside the jurisdiction of Gahiramatha Marine Sanctuary, specifically, Talachua, Tantiapal and Jamboo.
2. The Coast Guard should implement the ban stringently in affiliation with forest and setting Division. The Authorities of India will even co-operate on this effort.
3. The three police stations must be instantly supplied with sea-going patrol boats, with an extra power for defense of the sanctuary via joint patrolling with the forest division to make sure that no trawler enters the sanctuary space.
4. No-fishing zones must be clearly demarcated.
5. The nesting seashore at Gahiramatha must be fenced up on the landward aspect on the finish of the seashore with non permanent wire mesh over a size of three kilometres to guard the nesting Olive Ridleys, eggs and hatchings from predators like feral canines, wild pigs, jackals and hyenas.
6. The prevailing non permanent fencing at Gogharkuda Purunabandha seashore be strengthened likewise.
7. The boundary of Gahiramatha Marine Sanctuary, with its geo-coordinates, must be uploaded in GSP techniques of all fishing boats by the fisheries and animal assets division in order that their motion within the sea might be clearly recorded.
8. The state authorities will provoke a dialogue with the Indian Area Analysis Organisation on the feasibility of putting in transponders in all mechanized fishing vessels and trawlers to allow their being tracked within the sea. The Committee has knowledgeable the Court docket that this has already been carried out in Tamil Nadu. The Union of India will lengthen its cooperation on this matter.

The courtroom’s motion followed a February 4 report in Down to Earth that 800 Olive Ridley turtles had died since January this yr because of negligence of the state’s forest and fisheries division.

The courtroom took suo motu cognisance of the report February 23 and registered a case. It constituted a three-member panel February 26 comprising of Kartik Shankar, a sea turtle researcher of the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, Sushant Nanda, director (setting) of the state forest administration and advocate Mohit Agarwal.

All three members of the panel interacted with fisherfolk, locals, forest and fisheries officers March 6. The panel submitted its report back to the excessive courtroom March 15.

A division bench of the excessive courtroom comprising Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice BP Routray issued instructions to make sure the protection of endangered Olive Ridley turtles and curb their mortality price after listening to from Mohit Agarwal, the amicus curiae and PK Muduli, the extra authorities advocate for the state.

Greater than 60-70 per cent of the Olive Ridley mortalities between 2010-11 and 2019-20 had occurred within the Devi estuary alone, in response to figures furnished by the principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife).

The present estimated mortality was 4,000-7,000 Olive Ridley Sea turtles per yr. Most turtle mortality alongside the Odisha coast was primarily because of trawling operations, in response to the report submitted by the panel.

There was additionally incidental killing of turtles because of suffocation in fishing nets of trawlers or by accidents inflicted by the propellers of the trawlers.

The courtroom posted the subsequent date of listening to April 29.