February 11, 2010
Dear Sir,
As if we don’t have enough to contend with, what with the visitor drop-off resulting from the world financial crisis, resort owners having their hands full with very high air fares into Belize, rising hotel running costs, very expensive phone and communication costs, taxation, some of the highest electricity costs in the Caribbean, high price of fuel etc., we now have a new attack on our visitors – The Sport Fishing License.
Ah, but that only affects a minority of people – those who come here to sample our world class fishing, I hear you say. Not so. It applies to each and every one of us who picks up a rod or hand line to go fishing.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has managed to produce the dumbest piece of legislation yet. The new law (Statutory Instrument 115) which came into effect on September 14, last year, requires anyone on a boat equipped for or engaged in sport fishing, to have a Sport Fishing License.
The key word here is equipped. This means that everyone on the boat must have a Sport Fishing License, not just the fisherman on the boat, but everyone on the boat. So that includes non-fishing wives, children, babes in arms, your dear old granny, and even the tour guide or boat captain and deckhands!
So this means that all boats which go to sea; ferry boats, dive boats, catamarans, yachts, dories, cruise ships, etc., must ensure that all persons on board have Sport Fishing Licenses if they have ANY fishing tackle on board, whether in use or not. This does not just mean down-riggers; it means ANY fishing tackle. This will add $500 to the cost of a week’s cruise on a catamaran for ten people, if they simply trail a hand line to catch their lunch or even have a handline on board!
The penalty for failure to have a Sport Fishing license is $500, or 6 months in prison, or both.
But the madness does not end there. There is also a provision (Clause 8 para. 2) that anyone fishing (by implication not just in a boat) for species designated as “Sport Fish” by the Fisheries Administrator also require a Sport Fishing License.
And guess what? Amazingly, neither Permit, Bonefish nor Tarpon are on that list (which is appended to Statutory Instrument 114, also of September 14th 2009).
So, if you go out on a boat to fish for these species, you need a Sport Fishing License (because you are on a boat equipped for fishing) but if you are NOT in a boat, i.e. wading from the shore, you don’t (because they are not designated Sport Fishing species)!
Incredibly, the requirement for a Sport Fishing License also applies to fishing from the shore or from a dock, although providing you claim to be fishing for barracuda, snapper, yellow tail, you can escape the need for a Sport Fishing License, as these species are not on the designated list either!
A quick glance by any competent angler at the 22 species list “designated by the Fisheries Administrator” will tell you this law is aimed fair and square at offshore fishermen fishing for blue water species like marlin, sailfish, swordfish and wahoo. The inshore species are hardly represented on the list.
But the Fisheries Administrator has even got that wrong. The list includes Skipjack tuna, Big Eye tuna, and Little tunny, but not our commonly sought big game species Blackfin tuna (Thunnus atlanticus) and Yellow Fin tuna (Thunnus albacores).
Furthermore, the list includes three unusual snook species, but for some unfathomable reason, misses out our main snook, the Common Snook (Centropomus undecimalis).
The inescapable conclusion is that it is the blue water angler, with his expensive offshore cruiser complete with deep sea sport fishing gear, downriggers and huge multi-unit engines, who is the main target of this legislation.
So now it seems we have laws which try to aim specifically at one very small section of the community. However, in doing so, a law has been created which has more holes than a cast net. Is this really the way we want to go?
I have checked with Coastal Zone Management Authority, which has confirmed to me in writing that the law is to be applied “as it is “. The Authority has further confirmed that the reason for requiring all persons on a boat to have Sport Fishing Licenses is “to make enforcement easy”.
Coastal Zone also say that the purpose of this new law is to ensure that everyone who goes fishing has a license. Thus, if you have a Commercial or “Folkfishers” license, you do not need a Sport Fishing License.
But what of those, the vast majority of Belizeans and residents who fish just for fun or for a fish for their evening meal? It seems that if this law is to be enforced “as is” as Coastal Zone says, then they, too, need a Sport Fishing License.
Personally I cannot wait to see Coastal Zone trying to enforce this in our rural fishing communities. Revolution does not cover it. The cost of an annual license is $100, and with the law as it is, everyone, from small children to grandfathers, will need a license. Whole families are going to be hit by this.
Imagine a family with four young children and an elderly grandparent who like to have fun fishing together with a hand line on a Sunday afternoon. As the law stands, they would be required to each pay $100 license fee per year – $500 for one little family group.
You might think that hand lines are not sport fishing tackle, but neither Statutory Instrument 114 or 115 make this distinction. There is no definition of what constitutes sport fishing tackle in the law, as it stands.
Sadly our Tourism Association and the Belize Tourist Board have kept quiet about this. Well, Coastal Zone Management Authority says they are about to start enforcing this new law, so the BTB and BTIA better get ready for a storm of complaints, not only from resort owners who have to explain this law to their guests, but from tourists who will rightly feel they are being ripped off, to say nothing of the complaints from hard working Belizeans caught by this legislation.
I have nothing against Sport Fishing Licenses; they are a useful and legitimate way of raising much needed money to protect our fishery, and most countries have such licenses. However to insist that every man woman and child on a boat carrying a fishing rod must pay BZ$20 per day is madness and brings nothing but disrepute to Belize.
Will we next be requiring everyone on the boat to have a Master’s Licence? Or every passenger on a bus to have a driver’s licence?
Whatever have things come to, that such laughably stupid, inaccurate, ignorant and incomplete legislation gets onto our statute book? Is ANYBODY in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries who approved this law, listening to the voices of reason within their own Fisheries Department, which I happen to know are currently being ignored ?
Yours Sincerely
Chris Harris
Steppingstones Resort
Monkey River
Toledo