The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Staff Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

AS the fishing industry and public grapple with the critical need for conservation and sustainable practices, stakeholders are calling for a wider catch.

A market expansion to newer and more diverse species of fish could relieve pressure from local staples of conch and the Nassau grouper, and create thousands of new jobs, according to Prescott Smith, president of the Bahamas Sports Fishing and Conservation Association, and the Bahamas Fly Fishing Industry Association.

Mr Smith charged that the increased focus on conservation should be complemented by efforts to train and provide economic empowerment for Bahamians.

“We have not scratched the surface of the fishing industry in the Bahamas,” Mr Smith said, “what is lacking is we need to have the training programmes and infrastructure to open up fishing for red snapper in deep water, black snapper, silk snapper, pelagic fish, these would create thousands of new jobs for Bahamians.

“The approach to conservation should be how does it benefit the local people,” he said. “How do the people throughout these communities, throughout the country, stay and earn a decent living, because it’s obvious you can see the pressure being applied to just a few species, and you have declines in a lot of the areas as a result of it.”

Mr Smith added: “We’ve been putting too much pressure on just a few species to their detriment, when 90 per cent of the country is marine a environment. We have also not been focusing on protecting the nursery system that continues to replenish this. The Bahamas has the largest concentration of mangroves in the western world. This means we have to put priority to protecting our nursery system because it’s not just important for us, but it’s feeding the entire Caribbean and other countries in the region.”

Mr Smith spoke on the sidelines of the National Validation Workshop “Updating the Fisheries Act”, hosted by the Department of Marine Resources.

Industry stakeholders met yesterday to discuss draft legislation that is expected to reform management of the sector.

Chris Hedley, AGRER Consultants, said: “The idea of the act is to address what the government can and can’t do. It’s not addressing regulations, it’s looking at the powers and functions of the government itself, creating a new framework for governance.”

He added: “It is really creating a new system for the way fisheries can be managed by the department, which will then lead on in the next stage to hopefully better, more effective and more coherent regulations.”

Key features of the updated draft include: the creation of a Fisheries Advisory Council; the establishment of a Fisheries fund, which will earmark revenue generated by the industry; and new framework for the development of new conservation measures. Also addressed in the draft legislation are new procedures for licensing and penalties.

Mr Smith said: “Those particular species take longer times to grow, a conch takes maybe three and a half years whereas a mahi mahi grows about 10 pounds per month.”

“We are a young country that requires a lot of training, but we’re talking about real opportunities, an entire new industry, way beyond what we’ve been focusing on rather than just a few resources that leads to depleting them.”