Caribbean fishermen meet for seminar
The countries at either end of the Caribbean may be several thousand miles apart but they all share the resources of a single body of water. This morning I sat in on a session intended to make the fishermen as multinational as the seafood they catch.
For the first time fishing communities and organizations from seven CARICOM countries are meeting to discuss ways to strengthen their working relationship for the good and prosperity of the industry. According to Alan Burn, Chairman of the National Fishermen’s Cooperative, there are many things the fishing industry can achieve through information sharing.
Alan Burn, Chairman, National Fishermen’s Cooperative
“We could certainly have come up with things like a common fisheries policy – a way of handling our problems at the grass roots level. We may have been able to come up with Co – Management solutions a little bit earlier. We are just beginning to get into these things now and CFRAMP as I understand, has been working in the CARICOM countries in these problems over the years and we are just beginning to get into them in Belize.
I believe that we, although we have enjoyed a certain amount of success here in the fishing cooperatives and B.F.C.A. in Belize, we have a lot. We have a little distance to go yet and we can certainly benefit from receiving input from other people in our region who have slightly different problems and slightly different challenges from our own. So I think we will all benefit from this gathering now.”
According to Doctor David Brown, a sociologist of CARICOM Fisheries Resource Assessment in Management Programme, CFRAMP, who is sponsoring the workshop, the meeting will not only focus on the management of regional fishing communities, but the work of the fishermen, whom he says without their cooperation, the industry would collapse.
Dr. David Brown, Sociologist, CFRAMP
“It’s a very critical area of work because we realize that without cooperation and support of the resource users who are the fishermen, all the things that we have been doing to try to ensure the sustainability of the resources might fail. So we have shifted our attention to the fishermen now and make sure that they are well organized for that purpose.”
Among the many topics that will be discussed include from exploring the concept of cooperatives, its principles and management to networking. The workshop, which was officially opened today, will conclude on July twenty second.
CFRAMP is a CARICOM initiative which is based in Belize.
