Despite the risk of many inland reservoirs, which are imperative in freshwater fisheries, drying up due to the arid weather condition prevailed island wide, the freshwater fisheries industry has shown remarkable success in 2016, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Mahinda Amaraweera said. Freshwater fisheries grew at 4.1 percent this year and the growth is expected to exceed 8 percent in 2017 as a result of the development measures in freshwater fisheries taken by the Ministry, the Minister said at a progress review meeting held at the Ministry recently. From January to October, Sri Lankan fisheries has marked a total fish production of 432,270 metric tons, out of which freshwater and aquaculture accounts for 59,040 metric tons showing a growth of 4.1 percent compared to the 56,700 metric tons produced in 2015. Freshwater fisheries has contributed for the total fish production by 13.7 percent in 2016 in which natural fish accounts for 11 percent, freshwater aquaculture for 1.7 percent and freshwater shrimp for 0.9 percent. The Minister disclosed that the government has allocated Rs. 300 million for the Wewak Samanga Gamak program for the development of freshwater fisheries and the Indian government has granted another Rs. 300 million. Although a higher fish production was expected this year, due to the arid weather continued throughout the year many reservoirs which are mostly located in the dry zone, have dried up. Majority of the reservoirs are rain fed and the lack of rainfall throughout 11 months has reduced fish breeding in reservoirs. Apprehension and destruction of illegal fishing nets by NAQDA and the time consuming process of familiarizing fishers to use alternative nets and fishers abandoning fishing and entering to alternative livelihoods have also resulted in reduction of fish production.
2000, 2016 by LankaPage.com (LLC) :