Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 20, 2017 News
Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing continues to be a source of serious concern for the region, says the Executive Director of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), Milton Haughton.
The official said this during a media engagement immediately after the opening ceremony of the 11th Ministerial Meeting of the CRFM Council yesterday at the Le Meridien Pegasus Hotel, Kingston, Georgetown.
“It is one of the main problems in fisheries, globally. Over the past 20 years or so, increasing attention has been paid to the issue of illegal fishing and criminal activities in the marine environment and the safety of fishers.
“It is a fact, we in the Caribbean and many other jurisdictions lose a lot of economic resources from illegal poaching, illegal foreign activities and the truth is, significant developments have taken place to combat IUU fishing.”
Haughton noted, also, that there has also been significant development in marketing measures to deal with IUU fishing including implementing traceability systems.
The official admitted that the region is at an early stage in implementing these systems.
“But in the not too distant future, in order to trade in fish product; in order to export you are going to have to be able to trace where exactly the product is coming from and follow it all the way through the system to be able to certify that it was indeed taken by legal fishing and not sourced through illegal fishing activities,” Haughton said.
Significant developments have taken place across the region; Bahamas for example, invested US$230M recently in beefing up their patrol vessel capacity primarily to deal with illegal fishing.
Jamaica has also invested in vessels aimed primarily at curbing IUU fishing.
“We are seeing the benefits of these investments. Countries are also upgrading their legislation so that the penalties that are imposed when vessels are captured for involvement in IUU fishing, that these penalties have some teeth.
The problem we have in the region, generally, is that the penalties imposed tend to be very low compared to international standards. When the penalties are low, they are not a deterrent to would-be illegal fishers.”
Haughton told media operatives that the Ministerial council has been talking about IUU fishing and putting in measures to combat IUU fishing for several years now.
“So the Ministerial Council is well on top of this effort to deal with IUU fishing and seafood fraud. An IUU fishing working group was established at CRFM’s insistence, he said.
This group was formulated by the United Nations (UN)’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) three years ago to combat IUU fishing.
The group recently met last March and is scheduled to meet again this September.
“They’re coming up with concrete measures. I really believe that in the coming years, we’re going to see a significant reduction, perhaps even a curtailment of these illegal activities in our waters.
“We are losing a lot and we cannot afford (to have) illegal fishing destroying our valuable resources when you have so much social and economic needs and food security needs in the region and do need the resources generated from our marine environment.”
Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder said that Guyana and several other Caricom countries are now parties to a new agreement called the Ports States Measure Agreement which is aimed at fighting and eliminating IUU fishing.
The Minister also spoke about Guyana’s stance against IUU fishing and some of the systems that were set in place.
He spoke about the Ministry of Agriculture working along with the working group to develop the country’s capacity in ensuring that the measures to combat IUU fishing are implemented effectively.
“We continue to work with our fishing folk to ensure that we practise sustainable fishing. To this end, we have installed Vessel monitoring Systems in our trawling fleet,” he said.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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