The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Fly Fishing Industry Association’s (BFFIA) president said yesterday that many persons were “sneaking through the backdoor” into the industry, warning that there was a growing trend of vacation owners converting their homes into fishing lodges.

Prescott Smith told Tribune Business that much of the angst over treatment of foreign lodge owners under the proposed regulations of was “a smokescreen”.

“Many persons decided to sneak in through the back doo,” he said. “A few of those lodges are private homes that were converted to lodges.

“This is why I tried to sound the alarm as to the value of the resource and to empower Bahamians. Then you have a few of those lodges where they have a chain of lodges in different parts of the world, and so many Bahamians have been devastated because they have moved their clients from one operation to the next. There is a huge smokescreen that paints this false picture.”

    At the centre of the regulatory controversy is the proposed requirement that all visiting fly fishermen, even experts coming to the Bahamas for decades, have to hire a local guide at a cost of $600 per day, along with stricter definitions for foreign anglers and foreign-owned bone fishing lodges.

Tourism stakeholders are especially concerned that the planned changes to the Fisheries Resources (Jurisdiction and Conservation) Act and accompanying regulations will create more ‘red tape’ and price the Bahamas out of the market.

But Mr Smith added:” “You have all this talk about do it yourself (DIY). A lot of the vacation homes were turned into businesses when the owners realised the value of the flats.

“They could rent their homes out, persons could come in and they could go fishing, and so you end up more and more it’s a growing thing. That push back about DIY has a lot to do with a lot of illegal businesses running in this country under the guise of vacation homes and so forth.    

“We have the largest flats in the world, with the largest concentration of mangroves in the western world. You cannot ignore the fact that you have to empower local Bahamians to want to protect it themselves.”