MONDAY, JUNE 17, 2024
Team Herald
MARGAO: National Fishworkers’ Forum (NFF) in association with Goenchea Raponkarancho Ekvott (GREP) celebrated the World Fisheries Day at Bat Island. Hundreds of fishermen and their families participated in the thanksgiving mass held that day to commemorate the occasion.
NFF General Secretary Olencio Simoes pointed out that the World Fisheries forum was found on 21st November 1997 at New Delhi which, was recognised as World Fisheries Day due to the efforts of visionaries like late firebrand leader Matanhy Saldanha as well as others like Fr Thomas Kochery.
Simoes stated that all the affiliated state unions of NFF celebrated World Fisheries day in all coastal states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Gujarat. Simoes added that NFF were also demanding that the Union and State governments pay heed to their pending demands and respond responsibly to the demands of these grounded voices of the communities and calls for the unity of all fishing communities and workers, as the ocean people in steadfastly asserting their right to life, livelihood and resources.
“On the 26th Year of the World Fisheries Day, NFF demands the Central and State Governments of India to draft an Act which upholds the rights of the historical fisher peoples and coastal communities’ dependent on natural resources of the coast and the recognition and protection of historical and customary rights to coastal and marine commons and the constitutional recognition of the rights of the fishing community and legislation of the Coastal Rights Act on par with the Forest Right Act,’ said Simoes.
NFF, along with all the affiliated state unions, has written to the Central Fisheries Minister and respective State Fisheries Ministers to expedite the demand for enacting a Coastal Right Act,” Simoes added further.
