Hundreds of fishermen including women under the aegis of Pakistan Fisher-folk Forum staged a two-hour sit-in on Kotri Bridge here on Thursday to protest against non-release of water downstream the Kotri Barrage and its negative impact on the deltaic region.
Later, fishermen staged a march from Kotri Bridge up to the Hyderabad Press Club shouting slogans of "Karbala Karbala" and "destruction of Indus delta unacceptable".
Addressing participants, Fisher-folk Forum president Muhammad Ali Shah said that due to non-flow of Indus water downstream of Kotri Barrage the entire coastal ecosystem, both inland and deltaic, is being destroyed due to the intrusion of seawater and coastal talukas are being abandoned by people and only poorest of the poor have left behind.
He said the change in water regime in deltaic region has adversely affected fish, which survive and grow fast on marine water and Mangroves that provides important breeding ground for marine fish, shrimp, lobsters and crabs providing employment opportunities to hundreds of people.
They warned that if mangroves were degraded than the annual 250,000 tones of fish caught along the Sindh coast would be at risk.
He said besides marine fish, inland fish farming based on fresh water supply from River Indus had a serious impact on around 40 percent small and large public water areas, which are either dried up or had low water levels with the result that the fish production has been declined.
They said fish farms spread over an area of 38400 acres in the province has been dried up resulting in decline of inland fish production to the tune of 19200 tones annually.