It’s fisher folk month and to start off the calendar of activities, an open day was held today at the BTL Park. But this wasn’t just another educational showcase about the role of the Fisheries department and what is being done to protect Belize’s marine resources. Fisheries Administrator Beverly Wade told us that it is about recognizing and honouring the social and economic impact fishermen have in Belize and the region.
Beverly Wade - Fisheries Administrator
"It is a time for us to focus on the key actors in the fisheries sector who are really the fishers and it's an excellent opportunity for us to now highlight the importance of an industrious group of Belizean citizens who we often don't pay attention to in terms of the importance of their role to our national economy, the importance of their role to us culturally and the importance of what they do to our communities. Today as I said is the opening of the month long activities and who we have out here with us today are our partners who have been working with us in the fisheries sector. We have members from our conservation community, we have people from our co-management community, of course we have the fisheries department out here and we have cooperate sponsors who are out there who recognize the important role of fishers and they are also out here celebrating with us."
Mitchell Lay - Coordinator, Caribbean Network for Fishers Folk Org.
"This particular event is really important to me to signal event in that it's start a process of recognizing the contributions of small fishers in Belize and of course it extends to the region as Belize is part of the Caribbean community. So what it does is says to the nation that the sector is really important and that the people who work in the sector are really important. So this really signals opportunity to tell people that hey some of the contributions of this sector to the community and the country, so I think that is important. Really the thing that would be quite important is the fact that fishermen are recognized as being important and contribution of national help."
Fishermen’s Day is celebrated on June 29th and there will be a number of activities throughout the month leading up to the end of the month.
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