Eight decades ago, lobster was so common in our country that fishermen could pick them up off the reef in low tide. This was a time when the groupers were so plentiful during their annual spawning that a fisher girl said one morning that she saw a fisherman paddle by with his dory loaded with roe (fish eggs). Those were the days, my friend, when fisherfolk thought the good times would never end. They have. The days of plentiful Nassau grouper at Cay Glory, Glover’s Reef and other notable spawning sites are over. In 2022, to ensure the sustainability of the lobster industry, the Fisheries Department, which is the main science arm of the Ministry of the Blue Economy, called for lobster regulations that would “establish a new lobster carapace length of 3.25 inches, a minimum tail weight of 4.5 ounces”, up from the carapace length of 3.0 inches and the minimum tail weight of 4.0 ounces.
Some in our scientific community would argue that science alone should guide decisions related to the environment. Our country spends millions to train our scientists, and it makes no sense if we are going to disregard their advice. But scientists aren’t always in agreement on the way forward. And there is urgency in this world, the here and now, and when people can’t put food on the table or pay their bills, there is unrest. It is in the mandate of political leaders to balance the immediate economic needs of the people against the oftentimes cold dictates of unassailable scientific data.
Looking at the collapse of the Nassau grouper in Belize, it might not be far off the mark that it happened because we weren’t paying attention. Conservation and sustainability haven’t been in vogue that long. WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) Newsroom said the decline of the grouper was noticed in 1980, and it has “declined by more than 80 percent over that time”, to the point where some scientists say the fish is “at risk of extinction.” WCS Newsroom said scientists put the blame on overfishing during the spawning season, and the loss of pristine corals.
A number of lobster fishers railed against the new regulations introduced for the 2022/23 lobster season, saying that it would cause them serious economic hardship, and in response to their plea the political directorate went against the call from the scientists and announced a deferment of the new regulations until the 2023/24 season. When the 2023/24 season came, the Fisheries Department quietly announced the existing minimum carapace length of 3 inches, and a minimum tail weight of 4 ounces.
We were not apprised of any new studies that showed that the science arm of the Blue Economy had been overzealous in its call to increase the minimum size/weight of lobster. But it cannot be ruled out that the decision to stay with the status quo was an informed one.
“Bigga circus” than ours have been broken up, by people who had far more advantages than we have. The days of plentiful codfish at the Grand Banks in Newfoundland are over. Throughout the decades when fisherfolk sailed to the fishing grounds and launched small man-powered boats with fishermen with hand lines, the Grand Banks teemed with cod. The journal, British Sea Fishing, in the story, “The Collapse of the Grand Banks Cod Fishery”, said the end began “in the last few years of the 1800s when the first steam-powered trawlers vessels began to appear on the Grand Banks.”
British Sea Fishing said “by the 1960s, diesel power had allowed the factory trawler to be developed”, and the catch “soared, with 810,000 tons being caught in 1968”, but that “by 1975 the annual catch had decreased to 300,000 tons. In the two centuries of the 1600s and 1700s, an estimated eight million tons of cod were taken from the Grand Banks. In the fifteen years between 1960 and 1975 factory trawlers took the same amount.”
In the 1990’s, the Canadian government made the hard decision to place a moratorium on cod fishing. That led to the displacement of tens of thousands of fishermen and people working in industries related to the cod catch. The moratorium came too late. Speaking on the cod situation in 2010, British Sea Fishing said that the catch was not more than 10% of what it was in the 1960s, and largely culpable for that is that any “recovery, no matter how minor, leads to immense pressure to resume commercial fishing.”
Few, if any living in Belize at this time, have seen a dory loaded with grouper roe. Recently, the Belize Federation of Fishers (BFF), which earned credibility when it went against fishers who rejected the necessary gill net ban that took effect in all our marine space in 2020, declared in a series of articles written by Amandala journalist Marco Lopez, that the Blue Economy is asleep at the wheel. In July 2023, the BFF stated that fishermen and accredited researchers working with the group found that our marine industry was in serious decline, and if the Fisheries Department and the Blue Economy didn’t change its course, we would witness its collapse.
In response to the warning, the Blue Economy thanked the BFF and the research groups associated with them for their concerns, but said recent stock assessments “confirmed high and consistent annual recruitment rates into the fisheries, well-defined population structures, and sustained catch levels over time series.” The BFF responded to the Blue Economy’s declaration that all was well with our marine life, with a release stating that it unequivocally stood by all the documentation it had presented, that the national fishery is in crisis.
The BFF said there is overfishing in our waters, and there is too little enforcement of the laws. The BFF has charged that the world-acclaimed Blue Bond agreement, which placed a further 30% of our marine space under protection, “makes little to no consideration to address the social component … the fisherfolk who depend on the Blue Economy for their livelihood.” Prior to the Blue Bond, which refinanced a large portion of our national debt, thereby considerably reducing our heavy debt burden, an estimated 12% of our marine space were no-take zones. It is the consensus that marine reserves have contributed greatly to the health of our marine stock.
Last month the BFF signed a Call to Action, a 10-point Code of Conduct to guide the industry. BFF director, Nigel Martinez said the government needed to “set aside a 50-million-dollar Climate Resilience Fund for projects for fisherfolks”, and BFF’s technical advisor, former Senior Fisheries Officer at the Fisheries Department, George Myvett, called for “diversification outside of the industry”, and within the industry, exploration of the potential for deep sea fishing with cheaper funding than is provided by the commercial banks and the DFC.
The decision by the Blue Economy ministry to delay new regulations calling for an increase in the size of lobsters that can be harvested is an example of the turbulence that exists when politics, economics, and science meet in the sea. The Blue Economy has an immense task, and it cannot shut out the BFF from the decision-making process in this balancing act, between political and economic interests, and hard science.
Some Guatemalan military leaders disrespect UNGA 35/20 of 1980
It was reported last week that a senior officer in Guatemala’s military said that their country owns ALL of the Sarstoon River, not half. That is in defiance of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) declaration 35/20 of 1980, which affirms the inalienable right of the people of Belize to preserve the “inviolability and territorial integrity” of their country. The nations of the world recognize the south border between Belize and Guatemala as the mid-channel of the Sarstoon. Apparently, some in Guatemala did not get the memo.