Karachi: After spending days at a stretch in the Arabian Sea in his small rickety boat, Eisa Ishaq has only a small catch to bring to the shore barely enough to feed his extended family.

There was a time when his boat came loaded with fish, but not any more.

Excessive fishing by foreign trawlers under licence by the government has literally wiped out many species or pushed them to the brink of extinction.

"I do not see many species of fish which my father used to talk about," said 40-year-old Ishaq. "Perhaps my children won't find many species which today I manage to catch. The population of fish are depleting fast in our coastal belt," he added.

Poor catch

It is not just Ishaq and his four fishermen brothers, who see a bleak future for themselves and their families against the backdrop of a sharp decline in their catch.

Thousands of other fishermen and their kin living in the coastal areas of Sindh, especially on the outskirts of Karachi share the same fate as not just large-scale fishing, but environmental degeneration has resulted in the decline in their catch.

Many fishermen say there was a time when their boat used to come back full of sharks with "long beaks". but now they are hard to find.

Today, the biggest worry for Ishaq, a fisherman since early childhood, is how he will get his boat repaired? "We have not enough to eat, the boat repair needs a lot of money," he said.

Many of his peers, who operate from the Sonara Point Harbour, around 45 kilometres east of Karachi, have put their boats on sale. Different sizes of wooden boats lay on the seashore bearing a price-tag ranging from Rs150,000 (Dh12,396) to Rs500,000 (Dh41,324).

Khuda Ganj, another young fisherman, says that many fishermen are being forced to sell their boats because they cannot compete with large trawlers.

But unfortunately, there are hardly any buyers for their boats.

Fishermen say that over fishing, pollution and destruction of mangroves trees which once guarded the Pakistani coast and served as the breeding sanctuaries were playing havoc with the marine life.

Mohammad Ali Shah, Chairperson of Pakistan Fisher Folk Forum (PFF), slammed the government for allowing foreign vessels to fish in Pakistani waters that were the domain of the local fishermen.

President Pervez Musharraf's government banned issuing licences to foreign vessels for a brief period in 2001, but lifted the ban over pressure from the interest groups, alleged Shah.

He added that foreign-owned ships were responsible for depleting tuna stock to such levels that recently 26 Taiwanese ships had to wrap up their operations.

Great potential

The government rejects the objections made by the fishermen, saying that Pakistani sea offers great potential for fishing, which has still a big scope to grow.

Every year, the government earns millions of dollars worth of foreign exchange through fish export as well as by issuing licences to these foreign trawlers.

However, the growth in corporate fishing is depriving the local fishermen of their livelihood.

PFF says that the fishermen, most of whom are illiterate and poor, are also responsible for destroying the marine life by using illegal nets and fishing during the breeding season.

"We are trying to educate locals. Telling them that they could earn more if fishing is discontinued during the breeding season and juveniles are allowed to flourish," said Khuda Ganj, a Forum's representative.

But the task seems easier said than done.