We Must Preserve Our Natural Legacy

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Letter to Editor

Sunday, 05 June 2011 02:30

By Michael Hall

Antigua St John's - This letter is addressed to all persons who care about what we as Antiguans/Barbudans are leaving for our children.

It is a subject that has been digested and regurgitated many times, but because it affects our very existence, it must be brought to the fore over and over until someone in authority comes to realise its importance. This matter involves the plundering of our national marine resources, both in close and far proximity to our shores.

I have been travelling to Barbuda, our sister island paradise, from since my very early days as a youngster, and became personally aware of people both dead and alive whom I consider legends in their own right. Names that come to mind are Ivan Pereira, Tomack, Eric Burton, Vernon Joseph, Charles Williams, and Pope, to name just a few.

Over the last 15 years, I’ve seen the degradation of the once majestic beauty made by our creator in its coral reefs. They were truly the most beautiful of any place on Mother Earth. They have been around for eons, but in my short lifetime they have died right before my eyes, due to the effects of man, primarily, and of course nature.

Over the last few years, another deadly threat is now driving the nails in the coffin of Barbuda’s coastal fisheries. I am referring to the use of gill nets around the reefs, deployed there late afternoon and retrieved early evening with their deadly efficiency.

The owners of these nets manually set them strategically around the reefs, just hanging them off the bottom, and the nets actually don’t reach the surface. They are targeting all species of chubb (natures reef keepers), grunt, snapper, doctor, all types of grouper... to include hine, nassau, gromanic etc, and of course lobster. Once the nets are retrieved, these plunderers actually come ashore early at night to take their catch out, and sleep there in White Bay.

I have always known Barbudans to fiercely love and defend their rock, like no other place on earth, but I can’t understand for the life of me why they have allowed this situation to continue unchecked for so long. We as Antiguans, as far as I am concerned, have already lost our coastal resources to nearby islands’ fishermen like the Guadeloupeans and the Dominicans, and also to our own indiscriminate locals who can’t see further than their own noses.

So to now live and see it being repeated in Barbuda is heart wrenching, to say the least. What are we as Antiguans and Barbudans going to leave for our children to eat from the sea? Our children will say we merely sat idly by and allowed other people of other nationalities to deplete our seafood.

On my first return to Antigua from Barbuda, having witnessed this firsthand, two people from our group held a meeting with the fisheries authorities, but nothing was ever done. We got the same old story of the “Everyone must live” syndrome.

Another issue directly related to this, is our continued inability to police our national marine parks. Again, this has been going on for years with absolutely no progress being made on any front. Why is it that this works in other regional countries and not our own?

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The benefits are proven and are there to be researched by anyone - better catches in the adjoining areas, more fish and larger species, better tourist-related tours in the designated areas, to name a few. Can’t we start with say Cades Reef, which is ripe for control? It is littered with fish traps from stem to stern, but has tremendous potential for all.

This has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with creating new means of employment for all. The politicians need to get out of this min set that they will offend their voters. This is our country ,and who is going to take care of it but ourselves? Not other persons from neigbouring islands. When it is totally depleted, they will simply move on to repeat their callous deeds and leave us scratching our heads.

This issue cannot be run by any government agency, because nothing is properly maintained by them with regard to marine equipment. Hand the job over to a private company funded by the government, and private donors will come onboard. The new policing body should be given the necessary clout and authority to get the job done in an effective manner. In a very short space of time, nationals will see the benefits and wonder why in heaven's name we didn’t do it years before.

Hoping to see some meaningful changes in my lifetime, for the sustainability of our ever-so-fragile marine resources.

Michael Hall
Creekside

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