At a consultation held on Wednesday, December 14, 2022, from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM at the Fort Young Hotel, Minister of State in the Ministry of Agriculture, Hon. Julian Defoe revealed that Dominica is on course to develop the fisheries sector to the next level.
He said the Dominica Fisheries Division is partnering with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Western Central Atlantic Fishery Commission (WECAFC) in adapting the regional Moored Fish Aggregating Device (mFAD) management plan to the national level.
This assignment supports the implementation of the recommendation made by the WECAFC mFAD working group to promote the sustainability of fisheries using mFADs in the WECAFC area. The work is aided by the European Union-funded project, “Support to the Secretariat of WECAFC in implementing targeted actions of the 2019-2020 Work Plan on improved regional fisheries governance.”
The objective of the meeting was to engage stakeholders in the Dominica FAD fishery in the development of a national FAD management plan; identify and prioritize issues related to FAD management in Dominica; develop a management system for the FAD fishery; and establish a FAD management advisory committee.
“From a policy perspective we are well on the course to develop the fishery to another level be it that we have our fishery in small scale but that doesn’t mean that we cannot go up into a type of semi-commercial for the time being,” Defoe said.
“We’re going in steps we’re not just going to go into big commercial vessels while our people are not yet prepared so we are preparing our officials to gradually grow so that they can develop our fishery.”
He noted that the government of Dominica has made it a goal to increase the GDP of agriculture to 700 million by 2030 and the fisheries sector and industry has to play its role towards that contribution.
Defoe said at the moment fishery is way below 0.5% of GDP and can at least by 2030 increase to 1%, 1.5%, or even 2% which would have been a “mammoth” achievement. However, to do so, the sector has to control and manage the available resources.
“We cannot manage the fish but we can manage the operations and the people who deal with that sector,” the minister expressed.
Defoe stated that FAD fishing originating from the mid-90s is one of the most important fishing technologies which has been introduced to Dominica.
‘Those of you who are there would know that we have tried before and made several attempts toward a management system which [was] taught [as a] lesson system because we were very new and we were as far as introducing FAD license to fishers.”
Listing one problem with FAD as the issue of user conflict, the minister referenced the occurrence of fishermen confronting each other at sea. He acknowledged that these scenarios can be very dangerous, and referenced past incidents that involved firearms and ended up in the court system.
“We have other issues such as jurisdiction and ownership of the sea but persons cannot own any portion of the sea even if you have made investments. The solution we have come up with in the past is [to deploy] public FADs meaning that they are owned by the state or funded by the state even though they may be managed by a fisher organization or an association.”
It is just the grants from the EU and others you are after and now you talking to show that we deserve them. That money all disappears in government coffers and the big cheese decides who gets what if anything at all. And tell me, how fishermen go all the way out to their FADS if there is a shortage of fuel for their engines, please do tell me mr. Wise Guy.
Yes, sell them our sea the same way you all sold our Layou River from the bridge to the estuary. Now the owner of the Layou River is building wall on the side of the river – The walls are taller than the walls of Jericho. But they will leave all that and go. The same way Geese had all that banana plantation up by Castle Bruce. Where is Geese today? When things get really tight all these foreigners will run and leave us in peace. They can take the “Skerrits” with them and put them in chieng pen.
They are world champions in talking. Rhetoric and Propaganda is all they know. Look at them: Skerrit, Mathan Walter, Defoe, the Teacher, Popone, Denise…
All useless, utterly useless.
DNO you post these similar statements like this one predicting a rosy picture of the future. The problem that I have is you always fail to follow up at a later date to verify these posts.
By doing this, you are deliberately or inadvertently giving credence to blatant lies or, at least, misinformation.
Hold government officials and entities feet to the fire otherwise they will always feed this news outlet with unmitigated propaganda.
I have been hearing this EMPTY talk for years, yet the bunch of lazies still go about repeating it..
This government has failed all sectors, including agriculture, because no minister has control of his ministry. Skerrit the liar, “run things” in Dominica, and his clear intention is to plunder the resources of Dominica!!
Stop bombarding hard working people with empty rhetoric! You all are to boldface and shameless!!!
Set of MISLEADERS!!