Fish sanctuaries to benefit nearly 3,000 fishermen

Saturday, November 07, 2009 4:49 PM

General News

BY BALFORD HENRY Sunday Observer writer balfordh@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, January 25, 2009

NEARLY 3,000 fishermen will benefit from nine fish sanctuaries being established by the Ministry of Agriculture, to enhance fisheries resources in designated areas.

Making the announcement in a statement to the House of Representatives recently, Minister of Agriculture Dr Christopher Tufton said the establishment of the sanctuaries would complement the two already existing at Bogue Island Lagoon, Montego Bay and Bowden Inner Harbour, St Thomas.

Tufton lamented that Jamaica's traditional reef finfish resources are in a critical state of over-exploitation.
"Our fishers are catching less fish of smaller size, and there has been a deterioration in the quality of the catch," he said.
"The proportion of the more valuable species, such as Snapper and Grouper, has decreased, while the less valuable species like Doctor Fish and Grunt, has increased," he added.

He said that this, added to the continued loss of critical habitats necessary to support the fish population, "has made a bad situation worse".

The fish sanctuaries, if used effectively with other coastal zone management and rehabilitation measures, will allow for a gradual increase in the fish populations within the sanctuaries and in the wider, adjacent marine areas.

The nine sanctuaries to be established will benefit 2,736 fishers as follows:

. Portland Bight, between St Catherine and Clarendon, 1,381;
. Black River Bay, St Elizabeth, 367;
. Bluefields Bay, Westmoreland, 329;
. Orange Bay, Hanover, 80;
. Montego Bay, St James, 257;
. Discovery Bay, St Ann, 148; and
. Oracabessa Bay, St Mary, 174.

They will be managed jointly by the government and local community organisations and NGOs.

The minister said that, based on the need for collaboration at the local level, they will be managed through a collaborative effort between the government and local community fisheries-based organisations. The partnership will be formalised by a Memorandum of Understanding between the ministry's Fisheries Division and the collaborating oragnisations.

Seven organisations have agreed to collaborate in managing the sanctuaries. These are:

. Caribbean Coastal Area Management Foundation, which will be involved with two sanctuaries in Portland Bight and one in Clarendon;

. Bluefields Bay Fishermen's Group;

. St Mary Fishermen's Co-operative and the Oracabessa Foundation in Oracabessa;

. Negril Coral Reef Preservation Society, Orange Bay;

. the Montego Bay Marine Park; and

. the University of the West Indies.

Tufton said that two management arrangements have been agreed on: an annual grant to assist in meeting recurrent operational costs for participating oragnisations capable of monitoring and enforcement; and, in cases where the oragnisations lacks that capacity, four wardens will be assigned per sanctuary by the Fisheries Division, which will also underwrite recurrent costs.

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