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Toledo Fisher Folk Up in Arms over Jamaicans
posted (December 9, 2009)

Fisher folk in the Toledo District have come together in opposition to fishing contracts that were allegedly granted to three Jamaican companies to mass export Belizean fish on the world market. In a letter to Minister of Fisheries Rene Montero, the South Coast Citizens for Sustainable Development wrote specifically about a 15 year contract signed on September 2nd between the Rio Grande Fishermen’s Cooperative Society and PG Maheries Company Limited – a company allegedly owned by three Jamaican nationals.

In the 12 page contract, the Jamaicans will be allowed to import two large fishing vessels along with a “specialized” crew, and more importantly – the rights to access fish outside the barrier reef. Under the agreement, 85% of the fish harvested from Belizean waters will be solely for the export market. Those conditions in the contract have led to concerns from fisher folk in the area who are already grappling with a depleted fish stock. They held a town meeting this afternoon in Punta Gorda Town. Our team was there and Keith Swift has this report.

Guadalupe Lampsella, Fisher Folk - Riversdale
“I am so mad about what is going on.”

Guadalupe Lampsella and these other fisher folk from Toledo are mad, angry, and concerned about the presence of these Jamaican registered and owned fishing boats loaded with traps which have been docked near Front Street in Punta Gorda Town since Saturday.

Guadalupe Lampsella,
“My concern is about these fishermen and the boat from Jamaica coming into the waters of Belize for fishing. I don’t think we need any more fishermen, we have more than enough right here in Belize. We don’t need anyone either to come and teach us to fish. I don’t care if they are from Jamaica, if they are from Guatemala, or if they are from Honduras or Mexico. We don’t need any more fishermen here in Belize. We have enough.”

Eloy Cuevas, Monkey River
“This agreement that has been draft up with Rio Grande Cooperative and the Jamaican company, I think they should have consultation meeting with the fishing communities around southern Belize before that agreement was signed because this won’t just affect Punta Gorda Town fisher folk. This will affect the entire southern part of the country, the whole country on a whole this will affect down the road.”

Martin Reyes, Punta Gorda Town
“According to the agreement, they will buy fish for $2.50 a pound. In Belize fish right here in PG is $4 a pound and fillet is $6 a pound. In Belize City it is $8 or $9 a pound for fillet. So why would we go down backward instead of going forward? We are looking to go forward. We are not looking to go backward. What we intend to do is to make them move from here and go back to Jamaica because they don’t have nothing to give anybody in Belize. They are just taking from we and we tired of people coming here just grabbing and going. We want good for ourselves and we rather leave the fishes there for our grandchildren and our children’s children for the next thirty or forty years.”

Daniel Castellanos, Monkey River
“We don’t want no foreign company come destroy our area. I think Jamaica, they caused what they have right now. They got foreign companies to fish in their waters, they destroyed what all they have, and now they want to come and destroy our areas. I would ask the Minister of the Fisheries Department to don’t allow those guys to fish in our waters.”

Eloy Cuevas,
“All of us know that our marine products they are going down, they are declining very rapidly and by increasing the fishing pressure it will just take it down much faster and this is what we don’t want.”

Martin Reyes,
“We want them out because we need we fish for ourselves. We don’t need to send our fish nowhere. What I would want is for them to help some of the fishermen to uplift themselves and our own Belizeans can help each other for them to uplift themselves. They are talking about renting or selling boats to the local fishermen, we have our own type of boat because their boat look cranky and that is not the type of boat you use in these waters.”

Guadalupe Lampsella,
“I would just hope that our Prime Minister would listen to us. Please Mr. Barrow, please listen to us: we really want these guys out of Belize. We don’t want these Jamaican fisherpersons with these boats and traps here in Belize. We don’t want that. We would like the government of Belize to stop that immediately.”

But according to government nothing has started -at least not yet. Senior Fisheries Officer George Myvette was at this afternoon’s meeting and he says no license has been granted.

George Myvette, Senior Fisheries Officer
“No license has been granted to the Jamaican operation in Belizean waters. As far as we know they have essentially come the process of being admitted in Belize, they have gone through Customs, they have gone through Immigration, but there has been no application for license to fish in Belizean waters.”

Keith Swift,
“So there is still a possibility they can get a license?”

George Myvette,
“The conversation that we’ve had with the Minister is that Cabinet has made a decision not to accommodate the fishing arrangement. This is not necessarily saying that Cabinet does not agree with the joint venture. We are simply saying that as far as extracting the fisheries resources is concerned, especially by foreign parties, this will not be accommodated from a policy perspective.”

The September 2nd contract was witnessed by a fisheries officer but again Senior Fisheries Officer George Myvette says that doesn’t make it official. But even if it was, this morning on Krem Radio - Prime Minister Dean Barrow voiced his disapproval to the terms in the contract. It is important to note that the agreement or the contract was signed with the Rio Grande Fishermen’s Cooperative which is a Belizean group of fishermen. Again 85% of the fish produced by the cooperative would be for the export market. One of the other two contracts under scrutiny is reportedly with Rainforest Seafoods in Independence.

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