Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 21, 2017 News
– C’bean Fisheries Council told
Jamaica’s Chief Technical Officer within the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Dermon Spence, has called for the Ministerial council of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) to increase its
innovativeness to counterbalance the scarcity of financial resources.
The CRFM is an inter-governmental organization with its mission being, to promote and facilitate the responsible utilization of the region’s fisheries and other aquatic resources for the economic and social benefits of the current and future population of the region.
Spence was delivering remarks on behalf of Karl Samuda, Jamaica’s Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, and the outgoing Chairman of the Council.
Samuda could not attend the meeting due to urgent matters that required his attention back home. Some 11 of the 14 parishes in Jamaica are currently experiencing massive flooding due to excessive rainfall.
This was the 11th Meeting of CFRM’s Ministerial Council and was held under the Chairmanship of Guyana’s Agriculture Minister, Noel Holder – who took up the post from Samuda.
The council is the highest ranking decision-making body of the regional fisheries organization and saw persons who hold the portfolio for fisheries from the 17 Member States of the CRFM, attending the event at the Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown.
It was explained during the opening ceremony of the meeting on Friday, that the participants would review the ongoing programmes and the status of, and trends in the fisheries and aquaculture sector. They were also expected to discuss further actions needed to tackle the pressing challenges facing the sector.
Spence noted that the CRFM has a ‘proud track-record’ and has accomplished a lot since its establishment in 2002; however, in the face of increasingly scarce resources, the council is forced to be even more strategic.
“Efficiency and innovation must be the order of the day if we are to adequately address the critical issue and problems that confront us as individual countries and as a region… It is the contribution of member states that finances the CRFM Secretariat core and administrative costs and some priority activities. These funds cannot finance all the critical activities of the CRFM which includes support to all 17 member states.” Spence said.
He posited that the CRFM must focus on the top priorities and address them in the most efficient and cost effective manner; strengthen its effort at resource mobilisation to help finance its work; and strengthen its work in the provision of technical advice to inform common positions during negotiations at the regional and international level.
These three areas he explained are critical areas that the CRFM must focus on.
FISHERIES’ CONTRIBUTION
Minister Holder during his remarks told the Council that it should not just seek to find solutions to problems, but also seek to mark their place in the global village.
The Minister noted that with the region having a maritime area larger than its land mass, member states have to work together to ensure that there is maximum benefit to the people by utilising this resource sustainably.
Holder said that the fisheries sector represents an important economic activity for all of the economies in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), contributes approximately $420M to domestic production, and employs more than 341,000 persons directly and indirectly. He added that the sector also contributes to food nutrition, food security and rural development.
In the Guyana context, fisheries contribute 12 percent to agricultural gross domestic product. The country harvests about 32,000 metric tonnes of seafood and adds US$78M to the foreign currency earnings. Further, an estimated 12,000 Guyanese are direct and indirect beneficiaries of the local fishing sector.
Minister Holder also spoke about the need to develop marine resources, and to recognise the need to increase investment in aquaculture.
“Strengthening the linkage between fishing and the tourism sector in the region, can produce significant economic benefits to local fisheries and communities,” the minister said, while adding that this is something that member states need to devote more effort and resources to make a reality.
The CRFM consist of three bodies – the Ministerial Council; the Caribbean Fisheries Forum; and the CRFM Secretariat. Its members are Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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