Measures are in place to protect crawfish industry
By CHESTER ROBARDS
Business Reporter
crobards@tribunemedia.net:
The National Security chief said yesterday that measures have been put in place to protect this country’s multi-million dollar crawfish industry from poachers who can remove up to $22million worth of the product per annum from Bahamian waters.
Tommy Turnquest said a defence force ship as well as a smaller, faster craft, have been assigned to patrol the Great Bahama Bank where poachers have been spotted and confronted by Bahamian fishermen in the past.
He cautioned fishermen not to approach the poachers if they happened upon them but to call for assistance.
“We don’t expect Bahamian fishermen to be out there in a fight by themselves,” Mr Turnquest said.
He added that for the greatest protection of this country’ marine resources, the Great Bahama Bank is where the defence force has been stationed.
According to him, the construction of a new defence force base at Gun Pointe on Ragged Island will bolster the protection of the bank by providing easier, faster access for patrol boats.
However, fisherman in the past have complained that calls to the defence force have led to nothing but inaction, and they insist that poachers are often simply released with their illegal catch shortly after being captured by authorities.
With the crawfish season just five days old, and Bahamian fishermen facing the challenges of a new catch system that will allow their crawfish tails to be traded with European Countries, they are even more desperate than ever to pull in large hauls.
Last year saw an almost 50 per cent decline in the price of crawfish due to the global recession.
And at the beginning of the year, this country saw the makings of a trade embargo on crawfish tails to the EU due to the absence of a tracking system called the catch certificate.
Representatives of the fisheries sector told Tribune Business recently that the certificate was key to restarting trade, while adhering to the Marine Stewardship Council's (MSC) - the world's leading environmental certification programme for wild-caught fisheries - mandates.
Glenn Pritchard, president of Tropical Seafood, and Mia Isaacs, president of the Bahamas Marine Exporters Association (BMEA), said implementing the catch certificate will be the most important focus for the fisheries industry, as the Bahamas would not be allowed to trade with the EU if the chain of custody for lobster tails is not certified by use of those certificates.
The certificates will allow purchasing entities to trace catches from their possession all the way back to the fishing boat that made the catch - and possibly even back to the exact spot in the Bahamas the product was caught.
This requirement is part of a global mandate to help countries ensure their food exports are safe and traceable, and that they keep their marine resources in check to ensure sustainability.
While certification from the MSC is voluntary at this time, many importers of this country’s lobster tails are increasingly demanding that the country be certified in an effort to combat Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing issues.
When the Bahamas brings into force the MSC certification it is likely that many poachers, who are said to come form the Dominican Republic, will find a closed market for their product.
Mr Turnquest told Tribune Business in April that his department was investigating possible links between poachers and Defence Force officers. According to him, “intelligence operations are in place”.
However, he said yesterday that those efforts have yet to yield any findings to substantiate those claims.
Mr Turnquest said the Government is diligently attempting to resolve the poaching problem which exists within the Bahamas’ 100,000 square mile maritime border and the possibility that some Bahamians, even within the institution charged with policing these waters, are abetting it.
“We have in place some systems,” he said. “We have a limited amount of persons who know where these vessel go, but we continue to monitor it.”
August 06, 2010
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