Sascha Wil­son

Fish­er­folk op­er­at­ing along the south­ern coast are de­mand­ing com­pen­sa­tion for ex­pect­ed loss­es to their liveli­hood re­sult­ing from a Cana­di­an-based com­pa­ny's 3D seis­mic sur­vey sched­uled to be­gin next month.Vice pres­i­dent of the T&T Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion, Pe­ter Gloudon, said the project would af­fect more than 1,000 fish­er­folk who op­er­ate in 130 boats in the seas off Guayagua­yare, Moru­ga, Morne Di­a­blo and Erin.In prepa­ra­tion for the seis­mic sur­vey by Voy­ager En­er­gy Lim­it­ed, pre­lim­i­nary work to mea­sure the depth of the ocean, where the sur­vey is to be con­duct­ed, has al­ready be­gun.

Gloudon, who claimed the com­pa­ny moved in with­out con­sult­ing with the fish­er­folk, said the pre­lim­i­nary work was al­ready pos­ing a chal­lenge to fish­er­men who were be­ing in­con­ve­nienced. He said the com­pa­ny's ships were cut­ting the nets and putting fish­er­folk's lives at risk."They could eas­i­ly crash in­to one of the fish­er­men's boats," he said. Gloudon, who is al­so pres­i­dent of the Moru­ga/La Ruf­fin Fish­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, said yes­ter­day they met with the com­pa­ny's rep­re­sen­ta­tives who of­fered to com­pen­sate them for loss­es in­curred dur­ing the sur­vey which was ex­pect­ed to last a month.He said the of­fi­cials promised to work out a mech­a­nism to pay them ad­di­tion­al com­pen­sa­tion for the in­con­ve­nience caused dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary stage of the sur­vey.

Gloudon said: "We have been in­con­ve­nienced a lot dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary work and we should be com­pen­sat­ed for that. How­ev­er, I am yet to speak to my mem­bers about the $8,000 com­pen­sa­tion of­fer for the sur­vey but I am sure that we will not ac­cept it."When we con­sid­er how close they will be to shore and all the fish­ing banks that will be af­fect­ed. We will not set­tle for that amount."He said the of­fi­cials are not ac­knowl­edg­ing the in­con­ve­nience caused to Erin fish­er­men which was un­fair.

Calvin James, who is me­di­at­ing be­tween the two par­ties, con­firmed that a fe­male com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tive met with fish­er­folk rep­re­sen­ta­tives and made a pro­pos­al."The com­pa­ny ac­knowl­edged that there was a bit of in­con­ve­nience. They did come up with road map to move for­ward," said James. He said they were hope­ful of a speedy res­o­lu­tion to the mat­ter and are hop­ing they would be clos­er to achiev­ing that at their next meet­ing on June 21. He said they ex­pect the pre­lim­i­nary work to be com­plet­ed in a week and the sur­vey to be­gin in mid-Ju­ly.