Shrimp trawl­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go oc­curs at the ex­pense of all oth­er fish­eries. For over a decade, Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) has ar­gued that shrimp trawl­ing is not sus­tain­able in a mul­ti-species ecosys­tem and re­sults in the de­struc­tion of ben­th­ic or­gan­isms, ju­ve­niles of every fish species, coral reefs, nurs­eries and spawn­ing grounds. Trawlers scrape and drag the seabed, leav­ing an ocean­ic desert in their wake where on­ly the hardi­est of species, for ex­am­ple cat­fish and eel, can sur­vive. This is in­dis­putable. Da­ta shows that in Trinidad 14.71 pounds of ju­ve­nile fish are dis­card­ed for each pound of shrimp that is land­ed; 20 per cent more waste than the next high­est by-catch dis­card in the world (Source: Green­peace Archives: By­catch and Dis­cards of Un­want­ed Fish. Re­trieved from http://archive.green­peace.org/comms/fish/part6.html).

This is as far from sus­tain­able as pos­si­ble. Five months af­ter Vas­ant Bharath was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Ma­rine Re­sources, he held pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions with fish­ery stake­hold­ers. There was not a sin­gle body present to sup­port the idea of con­tin­ued shrimp trawl­ing. It was unan­i­mous that our Gov­ern­ment must as­sist the trawler own­ers in con­vert­ing their ves­sels in­to oth­er forms of fish­ing. It is un­der­stood that the fish­ery has been so dev­as­tat­ed by trawl­ing that not even the trawlers are eco­nom­i­cal­ly vi­able and are al­ready en­gaged in oth­er types of "in­dus­try," as re­cent­ly re­vealed with diesel trans­porta­tion ca­pac­i­ties. FFOS is now call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to fol­low the ex­am­ple of pro­gres­sive na­tions re­gion­al­ly, and ban shrimp trawl­ing com­plete­ly and in­def­i­nite­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to the World Re­sources In­sti­tute in its State of the World Re­port, "shrimp trawl­ing can be likened to dy­na­mite fish­ing in terms of sus­tain­abil­i­ty." FFOS main­tains that sci­ence must guide leg­is­la­tion, and leg­is­la­tion must guide pol­i­cy. Dai­ly, our catch is di­min­ish­ing in al­most all of our land­ing sites, and time is run­ning out for our fish­eries re­sources. Mr Min­is­ter, prompt ac­tion is re­quired. If we are to re­gen­er­ate or sus­tain our fish­ery econ­o­my in the short term, we must work quick­ly in ban­ning the de­plet­ing and un­sus­tain­able shrimp trawl­ing with­in our wa­ters.

Ter­rence Bed­doe

Pres­i­dent