Shark Fishers Forum held in Belize City
A National Shark Fishers Forum was held today in Belize City. The event brought together more than forty shark fishers to raise awareness of shark regulations, best fishing practices, and to discuss shark research being conducted in Belize. The forum also provided an avenue to discuss issues related to the shark fishery and to develop a way forward for the fishery. News Five Andrea Polanco stopped in at today’s event to find out more.
Andrea Polanco, Reporting
There are about seventy-five registered shark fishers in Belize. Most of them have been fishing all their lives – they fish sharks for local consumption and export to neighboring countries. Local conservation agencies and other associations have come out against shark fishing in Belize – though the practice is not illegal, they say it is unsustainable. Today, the shark fishers are meeting for a first of its kind shark forum – and Fisheries Administrator Beverly Wade, says this kind of meeting is important to the management and regulation of the shark fishery.
Beverly Wade, Administrator, Belize Fisheries Department
Beverly Wade
“Over the years, shark fishers as a part of their licensing condition, they have to abide by regulations. They are obligated to submit to us, data, information, and it is an opportunity to share with them, the results of that data for us to share with them what we are seeing in terms of the status of the shark population in Belize. There are species like the Great Hammerhead that we have concerns about and it is a species that we are looking at through the national sharks working group and now with our national plan of actions to see how we can now wean out that species from the fishery. And so today is for us to have an opportunity for discourse with shark fishers who have been a very good partner with us for them to hear what we are saying and to offer suggestions because they are often help us in bring better management for sharks in Belize.”
Shark fishers use gillnets and long lines in Belize. These fishing gears, primarily gillnets, have been highlighted as destructive gears – but fishermen Daniel Castellanos and Edgar Wagner have different opinions on it
Daniel Castellanos
Daniel Castellanos, Fisherman, Monkey River
“If you do it in a good way so that it nuh affect other species. You could do it if you are fishing for shark, you know where to go, how to do it. The way people talk about it dah like you mean to destroy other fish, right? But, no, when you di set fi shark, dah shark you di set fah and more so the fish weh you catch inna shark net, you make use of it. The only other gears I hear other fishers use dah long line.”
Andrea Polanco
“And is that as effective as the gillnet?”
Daniel Castellanos
“I would say it is as good. It is as good because you fish selected weh you ketch with long line.”
Andrea Polanco
“So, why do you think you guys who fish for gillnet haven’t moved away from gillnet and explore the option of long lines?”
Daniel Castellanos
“Well, maybe with shark you could do it but with other finfish you need gillnet to fish for finfish. So you need both of them.”
Andrea Polanco
“Can you see the members stop using the gillnets?”
Edgar Wagner, Chairman, Shark Fishers Association
Edgar Wagner
“Well, everybody use it; everybody use the gillnet. I cyaa say we wah stop it because it is very important fi we and it wah affect the association if they stop it.”
Andrea Polanco
“But you have heard of the destructive element of that net – you don’t agree that it is destructive?”
Edgar Wagner
“Well, it depends on where you set it and mostly we set it on the mud and so it nuh affect nobody.”
In recent years, the issue of the use of gillnets has been at the center of the discussion of shark fishing in Belize. We asked Chapman if long-lines could be an option to replace the use of gillnets in Belize.
Dr. Demian Chapman
Dr. Demian Chapman, Researcher, Florida International University
“I would think so. I would think it would be possible to switch out a lot of long lines for gillnets. The question is, is that gonna be any better? I think it could be. I have a lot of experience working with longlines when I catch shark for research and you are a little better able to target the species and so on. I haven’t heard yet from the fisherman about switching the methods, but a lot of them use both and so they have some familiarity with both.”
Beverly Wade
“There was a Cabinet decision that the Ministry would now look at the impacts of gillnet and the possible negative impacts that gillnet would be having on the fisheries, environment and to come up with some recommendation to cabinet. And that is a process that is happening. There is a taskforce that is chaired by the CEO in the Ministry and so that taskforce is an ongoing process. While the shark fishing is small scale and regulated in Belize, there has been ongoing research in Belize. Researcher Dr. Demian Chapman says the discovery of new a species last year is good news for Belize – but sharks are still feeling the impact of fishing – and there is no telling what the shark population looks like.”
Dr. Demian Chapman
“We’ve been setting video cameras on the sea floor as a way to see what sharks are doing on the coast. And what we find is that there are some places where sharks are doing well, like Glovers Reef, Lighthouse Reef and Caye Caulker, often times they are marine reserves or places far from fishing pressures. But there are places where sharks are not doing so well. There is certainly shark fishing in Belize and so that means obviously some sharks are gonna be killed and that could cause some populations to go down very, very low and so what we are trying to find is the right balance act so that there can be fishing of certain species but it can be sustainable so that there can be a shark fishery forever.”
Andrea Polanco
“But at this time we don’t necessarily know what the population of our sharks looks like?”
Dr. Demian Chapman
“Right, now we don’t have absolute numbers on what the different species populations are because it is multiple species we are looking at. Some are very productive, and some of the small ones are very vulnerable. So, the trick is to focus the fishery on the ones that can handle it and avoid the ones that can’t. And that’s delicate balancing act.”
Andrea Polanco reporting for News Five.
