Peter Espeut
LAST WEEK I met and chatted for a while with the Minister of Environment and Labour for the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada, the Hon. Kerry Morash. Earlier in his keynote address he had revealed that his grandfather was a ship captain, making runs to the Caribbean with saltfish and returning with rum. I informed him that saltfish was half of our national dish, and that the demand for it was still quite high in Jamaica; mischievously, I told him that we still had lots of rum, and even now were interested in a trade. I knew what his answer would be: "We don't have any more cod," he said sheepishly.
It is somewhat embarrassing for Nova Scotia and for Canada. Under pressure from fishing interests, catch quotas were set much too high and in 1992 cod stocks collapsed! What do I mean? I mean that for all intents and purposes, codfish disappeared from the Grand Banks of Canada. Bad news for the fishers of Nova Scotia who now faced poverty; and bad news for we Jamaicans who now had to search elsewhere for ackee's mate.
RECOVERY OF THE COD
In 1992, the Canadian government responded quickly by closing the Grand Banks: no fishing allowed for two years! Nova Scotia fishers were put on welfare, basically being paid not to fish; re-training programmes began to teach fishers and their families other skills (like computing and hairdressing).
The aim was to allow time for the cod stocks to recover; but they didn't recover, and the ban was renewed for a further two years. After huge pressure from the fishing industry, which advanced anecdotal evidence that the cod had returned, there was a limited re-opening of the fishery in 1997, even though scientists could not corroborate the fishers' evidence. The cod just weren't there, and the government closed down the cod fishery again in 1998 and it has remained closed ever since: thousands of people not just out of work, but having to shift occupations into entirely new sectors.
OVERFISHING
Overfishing in Canada is a reality. Fish are wild animals; if you catch them faster than they reproduce, then you will have few left. The cod case has proven that you can catch fish until there are so few left that the fishers cannot make back their gas money; the Canadian cod industry is destroyed.
Overfishing in Jamaica is a reality. The classic symptoms are there: reduced catch weight; reduced fish length; a shift away from quality fish towards trash fish (when last have you seen grouper?) The government knows we are overfished, and has a draft Fisheries Policy which if it ever becomes official will bring big changes in the industry. A new Fisheries Act has been in draft now for about a decade which, if it ever becomes law, will make a difference. More than a decade ago CARICOM Fisheries authorities announced that Jamaican waters were the most overfished in the region; no other country comes close. At an international conference I heard us described as "the basket case of the world". Our fisheries are in a crisis! There is no excuse for ignorance on this matter.
Where the Jamaican Minister responsible for fisheries should now be stepping in and taking strong action (as did his Canadian counterpart) there is - silence. Where new strategies should be well under way to reduce the number of fishers and boats out there chasing a dwindling resource, a usually sensible philanthropic organisation - Food for the Poor (FFP) - is giving out free boats and engines. This ill-conceived plan is only further destroying the environment, creating more poverty, and making poor fishermen poorer.
Over the last few years as this idea has developed within FFP, I have made several efforts to convince them out of it: I have spoken with senior management; I have provided literature; I have given PowerPoint presentations; all to no avail. The Director of Fisheries has assured them that their attempts to help poor fishermen are misguided; a special section in the draft government fisheries policy is dedicated to them, to prevent them from giving out free boats and engines in an already overexploited fishery, but they will not listen. Possibly they are begging to be declared "Jamaica's Environmental Enemy Number One for 2005".
DOUBTFUL ACTIVITIES
Spare us, O Lord, from do-gooders! Giving out food, etc., is not development: it is welfare (charity), and people who do not understand development should stay away from trying it. And people who do not understand how the environment works should stay away from doubtful activities. Ignorance is one thing, but in this case there is no excuse for it. Good and high-sounding motives are not enough to justify damaging behaviour such as building houses in mangroves or promoting overcapacity in the fisheries industry. This is the sort of damaging behaviour which could cause international environmental NGO networks to launch a campaign in the U.S. and Canadian media against donations to FFP.
As the world tries to come to grips with the global fisheries crisis, I look forward to the day when we in Jamaica will take even one small step to make things better, before our fisheries are as far gone as Canada's cod fishery.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.
