License Gillnet Users Support Ban of ‘Destructive’ Gear
There are some in-roads being made in respect of the eventual ban of gillnets. As you know, the government has endorsed the continued use of the fish gear on the basis that more than eighty fisher folks need to secure their livelihood before a ban is imposed. Oceana and the Coalition had committed two million dollars to impose a ban by December 2020 but that funding has now been lost without a deadline for a ban. Today, some fisher folks of the Belize Federation of Fishers, who use gillnets came forward to say they would support a ban once they can safely transition to another way of earning a living. Here is News Five’s Hipolito Novelo.
Hipolito Novelo reporting
There are about eighty-one persons who currently hold licenses to use gillnets in Belizean waters. A group of about thirteen of them announced their willingness to give up the gillnets for an alternative livelihood. They gathered at the offices of the Belize Federation of Fishers, an NGO in support of the ban. For Ema and Rudolph Flowers it makes a lot of sense especially since the fish stock is depleting.
Rudolph Flowers, Licensed Gillnet User
Rudolph Flowers
“Why do we have this gillnet and every year we only the pay. We prefer to give it up and do something else like what the man just said.”
Hipolito Novelo
“It is a lot of fish you use to catch?”
Rudolph Flowers
“Yes but not anymore. And now the Guatemalans are starting to do a thing in Crooked Tree.”
Reporter
“You have other sources of income.”
Rudolph Flowers
“We have to mind those children. I have to go and work and mind the children. It is too much of them.”
Too many mouths to feed but little fish in the sea and rivers. The gillnet is described as a destructive fishing tool and the NGO community wants it out of the Belizean waters. But this would mean and end of the livelihoods of many fishers who believe that there is another way. Giving up the gillnet, for them, means entering into a new industry, possibly in tourism to make ends meet.
Carlos Castellanos
Carlos Castellanos Licensed Gillnet User
“I got like an year that since it stopped doing net. You start think about so much damage that the net does to the reef. I dive the net and the reed actually has a sound, it cries. Whenever the net hooks on the reef and you pull it sounds.”
Alberto Fox, Licensed Gillnet User
Alberto Fox
“They forget about the entire reef. The reef is very important. They forget that people actually throw and set the gillnets on our reef.”
Denfield Tillett
Denfield Tillett, Licensed Gillnet User
“I just am a person who works for me. I would stay home and do some cabanas and go into like Howler monkeys or tourist and set up myself so that I can make an honest living.”
Nestor Lopez, Licensed Gillnet User
Nestor Lopez
“It is causing a lot of damage to the environment and I want to say that in my transition to build more lobster traps. I am not thinking of going into tourism.”
GOB plans to phase out gillnets in two years with measures to ensure that livelihoods security is a priority, especially for dependent communities. Today, this is referred to as social safeguards. An international NGO has proposed to fund a gillnets buy-back programme if a ban on gill nets is first instituted. From a social safeguard standpoint, a better approach is to ensure livelihoods are secured first before a ban is instituted. GOB, according to Oceana, turned down a two-million-dollar financial aid package that would have been disbursed to licensed Belizean fishers as part of their agreement to transition away from this indiscriminate and destructive gear. However, the time is ticking.
Nigel Martinez
Nigel Martinez, Director, Belize Federation of Fishers
“We understand the position that the government is taking however we want the government to understand our position as well. These guys are saying that they can’t survive anymore on gillnet. Even though they are saying that they are going to phase it out, ban it within two years these guys are saying that we are prepared to give it up now. However the government has to meet the conditions of the donors. The donors are saying give us a fixed time; give us a fixed date as to when this will be banned so that these people can access the money. These guys are saying that we want to give it up now, we want to access the alternative livelihood now so that we can start the transition process. It is best to start with two million dollars than to start with zero because we understand that this money goes back at the end of the year because the government cannot give a fixed time when the ban will take place then this guys will be left without anything. It is not free money. It is money that comes with conditions.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Hipolito Novelo.
