Shal­iza Has­sanali

Trawlers that were in­volved in il­le­gal diesel fu­el re­sale or bunker­ing have re­turned to the high seas, tak­ing bread out of the mouths of scores of fish­er­men who re­ly on the in­dus­try to sur­vive. As fish­er­men get pushed out of their jobs be­cause of the wide­spread trawl­ing, it has opened the doors for il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties along the south­west­ern penin­su­la.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 180 small-boat own­ers and their fam­i­lies de­pend on fish­ing for their liveli­hood. In the last six months, pres­i­dent of the Ce­dros Fish­er­folk Unit­ed (CFU) Lewis Padarath has no­ticed a pro­lif­er­a­tion of in­dus­tri­al trawlers fish­ing off Ica­cos, Los Gal­los, Fuller­ton, Bonasse, Ste Marie, Bois-Bourg Bam­boo, Granville-Point Co­co and Chatham beach­es.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 trawlers sail the seas dai­ly for fish, which has brought no end of wor­ry to main­ly small fish­er­men. Fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of the il­le­gal bunker­ing last Sep­tem­ber, a source con­firmed that the trawlers that man­aged to es­cape from the law have since re­turned to the seas.

The trawlers, Padarath said, have been de­plet­ing fish stock through by-catch-a process in which un­want­ed species are caught, while try­ing to catch oth­er fish. Trawl­ing al­so de­stroys the seabed. Al­so, ir­re­spon­si­ble ex­plo­ration, drilling ac­tiv­i­ties, ser­vic­ing of wells and dump­ing of chem­i­cals have al­so af­fect­ed ma­rine life.

De­scrib­ing the in­dus­tri­al trawl­ing as the most de­struc­tive type of fish­ing, Padarath called on the Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter to pre­vent the trawlers from pil­lag­ing the in­shore seabeds. "This type of trawl­ing must be zoned im­me­di­ate­ly," said Para­dath. Fish­er­man Yus­suff Ali sug­gest­ed it would be best for in­shore trawl­ing to be re­placed with in­shore shrimp farm­ing. The Fish­eries Act, Ali said is out­dat­ed, hav­ing been amend­ed in 1975.

No way to sur­vive

Sev­er­al years ago, Padarath re­called, trawl­ing was banned in north Trinidad. While the fish­er­men have been hear­ing that leg­is­la­tion was be­ing draft­ed to deal with this is­sue, Padarath asked, "When they stopped trawl­ing in the north, was it done through leg­is­la­tion? "Did any­one go be­fore Par­lia­ment? It was done at the drop of a hat."

Padarath ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment could take the same ap­proach. Dr Raphael Se­bastien, co-or­di­na­tor of CFU, said with fish­er­men be­ing squeezed out, "You are open­ing a whole com­mu­ni­ty in­to the il­le­gal trade, whether it be con­tra­band, drugs or guns. There is no way for them to sur­vive."

Se­bastien point­ed out that many trawlers have been in­volved in the diesel rack­et. Some have been con­vert­ed in­to mi­ni-diesel tankers. "The State pro­hibits the pur­chase of new trawlers. It is our un­der­stand­ing that to get around this pro­hi­bi­tion, some trawler own­ers are buy­ing up wood­en Guyanese boats and are il­le­gal­ly trans­fer­ring name and reg­is­tra­tion of their derelict boats to these wood­en Guyanese boats."

Se­bastien not­ed that Venezuela has out­lawed all types of trawl­ing from its ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters. "They are al­so very vig­i­lant about min­imis­ing pol­lu­tion in the Gulf." Se­bastien said what the fish­er­men would like to see was a bi­lat­er­al eco-pol­i­cy and pro­gramme be­tween T&T and Venezuela, geared to­wards a sus­tain­able guardian­ship of the Gulf, as well as a bi­lat­er­al mon­i­tor­ing agency that in­cludes fish­er­folk from both coun­tries.

"Our coun­try has been so ob­sessed with our hy­dro­car­bon re­sources that they pay lit­tle or no at­ten­tion to our hy­dro-bi­o­log­i­cal re­sources. It's not just about a piti­ful com­pro­mise to hy­dro­car­bon wealth but al­so sac­ri­fic­ing our fish­er­folk to the pow­er­ful in­dus­tri­al trawl­ing lob­by."

Bharath-Put our house in or­der

In­sist­ing that new leg­is­la­tion will come to Par­lia­ment by Oc­to­ber to re­view trawl­ing, for­mer food pro­duc­tion min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath, who spoke days be­fore be­ing shift­ed to the Min­istry of Trade, In­dus­try and In­vest­ments, said one is­sue that need­ed to be looked at was the peo­ple who earned a liv­ing from trawl­ing.

"You just can't ban it com­plete­ly and send hun­dreds of peo­ple on the bread­line. We've got to take that fact in­to ac­count." Copies of the leg­is­la­tion had been hand­ed to sev­er­al fish­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions for pub­lic dis­cus­sion, Bharath said. "One of the things that is need­ed is prop­er en­force­ment to en­sure that the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ty looks af­ter it. We have a num­ber of deep-sea trawlers that are fish­ing very close to Venezuela's two-mile lim­it, and it is cre­at­ing a small prob­lem for our small fish­er­folk."

Bharath ad­mit­ted that the seabed and nat­ur­al ma­rine life are be­ing de­stroyed by the trawlers. "This has to do with the fact that the fish­er­folk are us­ing very small nets to trap the fish. In do­ing so, the small fish­es and sea an­i­mals are caught. "We will deal with that in the new leg­is­la­tion. We have to reg­u­late the sec­tor. We have to put our house in or­der."

The new leg­is­la­tion will en­sure that all fish­er­men are li­censed, and will lim­it the num­ber of trawlers op­er­at­ing on the high seas. When told some fish­er­men had moved on to new pur­suits, main­ly il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty, Bharath said he has been try­ing to make their lives eas­i­er, by re­fur­bish­ing fish­ing de­pots across the coun­try.

"We can do so many things on­shore. But out­side of that, you re­quire the Coast Guard to man the wa­ters." Bharath said fish­er­men are giv­ing up be­cause they have to go fur­ther out to fish. "They now have an is­sue with se­cu­ri­ty. The fur­ther out they go, the more at risk their lives be­come. We know a few of them have come to an ill-fat­ed end."