Fishermen look deeper for new species

Fishing is hard work, made even more challenging by spiralling fuel costs and declining catches of lobster, conch, snapper, and grouper. But Belizean fishermen have traditionally used only the shallow waters between the reef and mainland, along with the three atolls. Today, they received encouragement to look deeper to maintain their livelihoods.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The idea is to encourage local fishermen to diversify their catch and utilise other fish species located in deeper waters outside the barrier reef.

Mauro Gongora, Fisheries Officer
?This is important for us because conch and lobster populations have been declining slowly and we want to prepare for that. We don?t want to be faced with the situation where there is a crisis with our conch and lobster production.?

It is believed that no more than twenty-five local fishermen are currently engaged in deep sea fishing. According to fisheries officer Mauro Gongora they are not looking to establish the type of industrial deep sea fishing that has been criticised by environmentalists.

Mauro Gongora
?What we are promoting is artesanal fishing where we will not be employing very large vessels as has happened in other countries.?

Long line fishing is a commercial fishing technique that uses thousands of baited hooks hanging from one single line. Studies have shown that the practice has been detrimental to various not commercial species of fish, birds, and turtles that are indiscriminately caught on the many hooks. This is not what is being proposed for our waters.

Mauro Gongora
?In Belize, as I said, we don?t have that problem because we don?t have a long line fishery. What we should be doing is regulating the areas where we can do deep water fishing. That is an effort that we are doing in this project.?

Today?s training workshop sponsored by the Belize Fisheries Department and the Japan International Cooperation Agency focussed on how to construct, repair, and utilise fishing gear for the fishing of diamond back squid and deep sea fish species. The session will also give the participants a practical training exercise in deep sea fishing. Reporting for News Five, Jacqueline Woods.