It gives me a great pleasure to be here to day for the workshop-cum-demonstration on TED, which aims at protecting the endangered Olive Ridley Sea Turtles from accidental catch and simultaneously helping the trawling fishermen of our state from the catch loss problem. It is indeed a unique opportunity that the Fisheries Directorate of Govt. of Orissa and an NGO like Project Swarajya together have organized the present workshop on TED in collaboration with State Wildlife Wing of Forest Department, Govt. of Orissa; Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun under the ongoing GOI-UNDP Sea Turtle Project. As a matter of fact organization of this four day long workshop is a reflection of commitment and concern of both Non Governmental Organisations as well as various stake holder departments of State and Central government and UNDP for sustainable management of coastal aquatic bio-diversity of Orissa. Orissa was a pioneer state in the whole South East Asia for having the Technology Transfer Programme on TED, which was held at this place Paradip six years ago during November 1996. Since then several on-sea field level demonstrations have been held in different places of Orissa. Our consistent past endeavours have resulted in the present event to involve the trawl operators and fishermen in a much bigger way in this on-site training on fabrication and fitting of TED as well as on-sea comparative demonstrations of TED. TED, as you know is popularly known as 'Turtle Excluder Device' or 'Trawling Efficiency Device'. The turtles drowned in the trawl nets get killed due to suffocation which also damage the trawl net after its death, ultimately also reducing the quality of shrimp catch. To save the fishermen from such losses and simultaneously to save the turtles, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) of Govt. of USA in the mid-1980's had developed the device known as TED. This is a very low cost device made up of steel or aluminium metal which is fixed to the trawl net. If by chance any turtle enters accidentally in to the trawl net, it escapes safely through the exit hole of the TED. This is a thoroughly tested device for several decades in different.
It is a great event that so many fishermen and fisher women have come forward to actively participate in this workshop-cum-demonstration programme. I hope that this present endeavour will drastically reduce the growing anxiety about possibility of large sssssscale death of sea turtles caused by their entanglement in trawl nets.
Therefore, the trawling community and all the persons associated with the shrimp industry starting from shrimp collectors, processors to exporters should realize that it is in the long term and best interest of their shrimp business that they should protect and conserve the habitat and breeding grounds of the Olive Ridley sea turtle populations.
It is also possible that there will be some loss in the catch of fish and prawns during the process of trawl fishing with TEDs. But this is not very much significant and the fishing industry have to bear with this small loss for a much bigger and long term gain. I am confident that with the active participation, co-operation and timely involvement of the fishing community, our scientists and fishery officers in due course can bring about the necessary and desired modifications, if required, in the present design of TED which will be quite suitable to our environment and our coastal waters.