The Tribune

SOMETIMES, we can be our own worst enemy.

The report detailing the extent of illegal or unregulated catches in the fishing industry shows how often people fail to think of tomorrow when trying to make money today.

The report comes from the Inter-American Development Bank, but it has found general agreement locally from Paul Maillis, of the National Fisheries Association, who described the industry as a “cloud of the unknown” when it came to catches being improperly reported or not recorded at all.

Long-time readers of The Tribune will know the number of times we have highlighted fears over low stocks of conch – including in this column – and the report suggests that a quarter of all conch landings are illegal.

Worse than that, three out of every five conch are harvested before they can reproduce. How are we supposed to stop our fisheries from being exhausted if we don’t even let conch reproduce before we harvest it?

Do we want to be telling the next generation that conch used to be a national symbol of Bahamas life, that a conch salad was a traditional staple of our diet – but that we destroyed it?

Mr Maillis agrees, saying: “We have to take the conch problem very seriously.”

It’s not just conch that has to be dealt with in a more serious way – the report also cites other problems with fish catches, and the way in which catches are reported, accurately or otherwise.

Some of this requires structural change. Of course we can’t know how our fishing stocks are being drained if we don’t have a strict requirement for accurate reporting. That needs to change, but other measures are needed too. Some of that might involve restrictions on catches, some of it might come down to simple education to ensure immature conch or fish are left to create a next generation.

Most of all, we have to acknowledge that while this report is welcome, we didn’t really need it. We’ve known for years the problems with stocks, we’ve known for years that we need to do something about it … and we’ve known for years that not enough was being done.

We would love to hear the current government’s plans to deal with the situation. It won’t be popular to fix some of the problems – extra regulation or documentation is never welcomed. But if we do want to keep our fishing industry going 20 and 30 years down the line, we need to do more than we are right now.

Crystal Cruises

The situation over the Crystal Cruises ships parked in Bahamian waters during a legal stand-off is peculiar and worrying.

The ships have been detained in a row over money owed by the parent company. One fuel supplier says about $2.1m is owed, for example. Indeed, a Supreme Court ruling led to arrest warrants being served on Friday.

Money wrangles are one thing – but there are also crew members still on board the two ships, the Crystal Serenity and Crystal Symphony. Those crew members are not to blame for their parent company’s financial strife – but the staff still needs to be paid, and fed, and needs to get home if they can no longer stay on board the ships at some point.

The ships themselves will continue to need fuel to operate its systems, as well as food and other deliveries.

Arranging for 900 crew members to get home to the different parts of the world they come from will be no small operation – and who will foot the bill for that?

It’s a mess – and we hope it doesn’t get worse for the crew. Being stuck on a ship with nowhere to go and diminishing supplies is a recipe for disaster. We hope all concerned can make sure that situation is averted.

Part of the problem is of course that these ships are here because they fly a Bahamas flag of convenience. Rather than face the courts in the US, they head for Bahamian waters as a temporary legal shelter rather than risk having the vessel seized elsewhere.

We’ve been bitten by this problem before, of course, when cruise ships that couldn’t find a home at the start of the pandemic, with sick passengers on board, found themselves in our waters, seemingly leaving behind damage to the seabed that has never been adequately explained or for which we have received appropriate compensation.

The amount that we charge for such flags is a pittance, which is fine enough when there are no consequences, but when we wind up with ships having to seek shelter in our waters and the financial hit we might have to take as a result, the sum is a fraction of what we might have to potentially spend if the worst comes to the worst. Let alone the sight of ships going nowhere in our waters and the damage it does to our reputation as we hear stories of people trapped on board in terrible conditions.

We ought to look again at what we charge for such things, bearing in mind the potential costs we could be saddled with by handing out these flags of inconvenience to ourselves. We’ve seen the dangers now – we shouldn’t ignore them.