Post Independence Development of Fisheries in Sri Lanka
Authors: Jinadasa J. 
Published: March 2024

The Island Sri Lanka has a coast line of about 1640 km. she is ideally located in the Indian Ocean to harvest thefish stocks all the Imy to Antarctic and be one ofthe leadingfishing nations of the world. However. the reality is quite opposite to the above assumption. Her fish production was about 10.000 mt until middle of 20th century, around 1948: harvested, primarily using very primitivefishing gear made out of coir; cotton and hemp, Out of the above total catch. about 47 percent was by beach seine (madel). one of the sluggish and inefficient method offishing in the word Fish has to approach the gear instead of gear chasing after the fish. Further. the fisherman ventured into the sea to operate their primitive fishing gear in dug out canoes, wooden plank rafts or vaded out into sea up to chest height. These were traditional fishing crafts and operated in the continental shelf waters up to a distance of about 10-12 kmfrom shore. The change in the gearfrom coir nets and ropes to nylon nets and lines commenced around I958, amidst resistance from other fisherman due to their inability to absorb new technology. Infact fishermen even destroyed nylon nets by dynamiting them, at the same time, traditional log rafts and dug out canoes were fitted with out board motors to increase the efficiency ofcrafts. There were 104 such mechanized crafts in 1958 and 861 in 1963. This led to increase fish catch from 25.2 mt in 1952 to 91.2 mt in 1963 an increase of 10,000 mt/year. Subsequently, in mid 1960s more 3 1/toners, 40 of 11 toners were added on to the fleet; the latter were owned and operated by Ceylon Fisheries Corporation. Further 07 trawlers to operate in Wadge Bankfrom Colombo and tuna clippers to operate in the Oceanic waters were introduced Research and technology got underwayfunded by Colombo Planfrom mid 1950s; that was a turning point in most development of our fishing industry. Titus, the Colombo Plan was the sheet anchor of post independent fisheries research in Sri Lanka The work of Medcoff and Sivalingam brought a wealth of research information on fish resource. These later paved the wayfor the introduction of multidayfishing boats withfreezing facilities. Universities. namely. Vidyodaya started to teachfisheries science in 1966 under the leadership of Dr K. Sivasubraniam. followed by other Universities to provide scientific manpower for research and management. Then hy 1972 our total fish production was about 93.000mt. Around 1970s beach landing Fiber Reinforced Plastic Boats (FRP Boots due to plastic industry and shortage of timber) entered the industry and became very popular. The total fish production was about 179.000 mt around 1979. The declaration of the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in /976. with an area of 517.000 km helped to increase the fish product ionfurther. although, Sri Lanka lost Wedge Bank and northern half 0f Pedro Bank to India. 1n mid 1980s Government owned trawlers were disposed of as the fishery was unprofitable. More fish resource surveys were undertaken by R/V Dr. Fridtjof Nonsen (1970s and 1980s) and other surveys by NARA and the Universities. This led to expansion of thefishing industry. A great leap in the offshore with multiday boats development took place at the end of 1970. The offshore fishery. mostly for large pelagic species like tuna. sharks. and hill fish like marlins. swordfish and sailfish rose sharply after 1993 to 70 mt/boot/year by 2007 and its rising Its development initiated around 1960s with the introduction oftuna long liners in the Oceanic waters. By then the coastal fishery for small pelagic species had started to decline due /0 huge increase in effort, thus, its cpue is now dropping below 5mt/boat/year. The demersal fishery seems to be still in dormant stage due to lack of information on the species and stocks. Therefore, thefuture of the coastal fishing industry in the future could lie on coastal demersal species and offshore fishery that started to develop after independence.