How can we monitor the fishing agreement?

There have been many Letters to the Editors regarding the above captioned agreement asking why the negotiations are taking so long to conclude. Most of the writers are of the opinion that our Trinidad/Tobago fish stocks are expendable I cannot believe it!

Let me tell you that I have been fishing for many years off Tobago in the same area that the Barbados boats are fishing “their” flying fish and there has been an incredible decline in all of our migratory and highly migratory fish (Blue Marlin, White marlin, Saltfish, Tunas, Dolphinfish and Wahoo) which were once abundant off Tobago and which they are also targeting. One major apparent reason is that the 200 or so Barbados fishing boats are catching all the flying fish which is the feed stock for our migratory and the highly migratory species. For our country to trade-off a natural resource (fisheries) for other commercial interests is totally ludicrous and if allowed to take place, will surely devastate our local fishing industry and decimate “our” natural resource!

This country is a signatory to several international conventions, one of which is International Convention of the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), all of these conventions have established that practically all commercial fish species are exploited and over-exploited and that precautionary or no further fishing efforts should be deployed otherwise these fish will become endangered species and our children will only know what they look like from pictures, therefore Trinidad and Tobago should not be entering into any fishing agreement with any country whatsoever. If the information in today’s press is correct, they are squabbling over whether 30 or 60 licences should be issued. Our fish stock assessments dictate that no licences should be issued! In any case, who and how are we going to monitor 30 or 60 boats on a daily basis on the high seas to check if they have a licence?

SID JOHNSON
Cascade