Impact of mechanised fishing on inshore fisheries resources of Konkan coast of Maharashtra, India

摘要

Indian subcontinent is covered on three sides by the marine sea coast and has contributed for the major fish catches of India. The development of the marine fisheries has undergone a transformation from traditional fishing method to mechanized fishingall along the coast during the last four decades. There are 11 maritime states among which the state of Maharashtra having 720 km of coast line with 1,11/512 sq. km of continental shelf area. Traditional fishing methods are rapidly replacing by mechanized fishing techniques in Maharashtra. Marine catches using traditional methods were 66,292 tons in the beginning i.e. 1964-65 and has reach a level of 17936 tons during 1995-96. Similarly production trends of the mechanized fishing also indicates increase to the tunes of 4,23,985 tons in 1995-96. Their catches have definite relationship with the mechanization program of the state of Maharashtra Government indicated in 1960-61, in which number of boats were found to have increase 1338 to 9,261 as on 1999-2000. Similarly the share of the catches obtained from mechanized boats were 85% of total marine landings. So far as marine fisheries efforts are concern the initially mechanized boats where 10 feet (over all length) with 2.5 hp cylinder engine. The recent pictures shows use of 50 (over all length) feet boats with 10 hp having trawling as well as purse-seining facilities which employed mainly in inshore area. Along with this the type of nets, also shows definite changes such as cod end in trawl mesh size of net and height as well as material in purse- seine net. In this paper, changes in the fishing craft and gear are discussed in detailed along with the changing trends in the fishing catch composition.