Last month this newspaper spoke to a number of fishermen, all of whom complained about the disappearance of fish stocks. One informant told us that she had had to put two of her fishing boats up for sale and had ceased operations with the third following financial losses. This country was always known up until recently for the plentiful nature of its fish, and members of the older generation will remember the Japanese vessels which used to come here to fish along our coast decades ago, and the Venezuelan boats which would slink clandestinely into our waters to harvest our snapper. In those days we lacked the Coast Guard capabilities to prevent their incursions and the theft of our resources.
But we are into a new epoch. Guyanese have always taken for granted the ease with which they could go to the markets or the fish vendors and purchase snapper or trout, to name the two of the most popular species. Not any more. A vendor whom we interviewed who had once worked as a fisherman, told us that he and about 10 other vendors would go to the koker to purchase fish when the boats returned from sea, and only about three of them would succeed in securing anything.
It is not altogether clear exactly how many people the fishing industry employs, but it is probably quite a substantial number since so many of them are artisanal fishermen. But the current depletion of stocks affects everyone of whatever size in the trade. The interviewee to whom we referred above, stopped her captain and three crew members from going to sea about two months ago. Immediately prior to that they had made about five trips lasting between six to eight days and had only returned with about 15-20 trout. Their traditional catch would be around 200 trout, snapper and other species. She is now looking for a job, she told us.
The story was the same from all the fishermen to whom our reporter spoke. One fisherman related how when the business was thriving, his boat would go out for just three days and his “2000-pound fish box would be full with trout, snapper, catfish.” Now, we were told, the captains and many of the fishermen had already left “fishing work” and were seeking jobs as labourers and drivers. Another said that they were now taking home barely $8,000 to $10,000 after being at sea for five days. This, as he remarked, is “way under the government wage.”
He went on to observe that the majority of fishermen did not have the qualifications to get a good job, and so they had no option but to go to sea and try their luck again. Another described many of them as being illiterate, and so would have difficulty finding alternative employment. In the words of one respondent, “What we are heading for is amounting to starvation because to me, in the next two to three years, this fishing industry would come to a close…”
The issue, of course, is exactly what the cause of the declining fish stocks is. Some of the fishers to whom our reporter spoke had no doubt: it was the drilling for oil. One fisherman told us: “We don’t know what is going on below the sea, but the fish know. Probably the noise and the vibration from the drilling is causing the fish to run away.” However, without proper research being undertaken no one will know exactly what the true nature of the problem is. There are other possibilities such as overfishing or a change in the salinity of the water for example, since climate change can potentially affect the marine environment in a number of ways.
According to a press release from the Ministry of Agriculture, Minister Zulfikar Mustapha met with stakeholders from the fishing industry to discuss their problems on November 24. When the fishermen alerted him to the matter of low catches, the Minister seemed to know about it already and responded that there had been a noticeable decline over the years, and that the government was fully supportive of having analyses done to find the cause.
The release quoted Mr Mustapha as saying: “Let me make it clear, this government will not let the fisheries industry die. We agree that there have been low catches but we have to shy away from making assumptions without first conducting a proper analysis. Guyana is not the only country that is being affected by low catches. This is a global phenomenon and the factors will vary from country to country… as a government, we are prepared to work with you so that we can have a solution to this issue.”
He went on to tell the fishermen that the government had engaged the Environmental Protection Agency and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisa-tion to help in conducting an analysis in order to determine the reason for the declining catches. This, at least, is a positive step in the right direction. One can only hope that the administration impresses on the agencies involved that there is a certain urgency about the matter, because many livelihoods are at stake.
What the Minister is not in a position to say at this stage, is that the government will not let the fishing industry die. If climate change is the source of the problem at any level, then the industry may be destined for annihilation no matter what the Ministry decrees. Similarly, if in the unlikely event it transpired that oil drilling had a role in the story, then the government would not destroy oil to save fishing. If overfishing is the prime cause, then measures could be taken to allow fish stocks to recover, but this would take time and would not benefit the present generation of fishermen.
The only sense in which Mr Mustapha could mean that the industry would not be allowed to die would be in relation to aquaculture, in which Mr Pritipaul Singh is engaged, for example. The aquaculture industry, however, is in no position to absorb a small army of sea-going fishermen, even if it could take on some of them.
What those who make their living on our coastal waters want to know is whether the government will help them as it did the sugar workers following the closure of the estates.
“The government is only looking after the farmers, but we need compensation too for our losses,” said one fisherman.
“This crisis is affecting us badly. It is the hardest year we ever faced. In this way the industry would collapse in about three years; our livelihood is at stake. The government is only looking after the farmers, but we need compensation too for our losses.” Another said that fishermen fed the nation by braving harsh conditions at sea, but were not given any importance.
The government would do well to consider now what kind of measures it can put in place to assist those in the fishing industry should catches not recover.