Claudia Stella Beltrán Turriago, the economist who has been engaged by the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) to lead a new study to look at the impacts of rising cost factors of fishing operations, such as labor, fuel, fishing gear, repair and maintenance, and capital, completed the first leg of field work in Belize today.

While in Belize, she had a chance to conduct surveys with fishers from various communities around the country. The Belize Fisheries Department assited with surveys in more remote parts of the country, such as the far north and the far south. It is expected that the Belize survey will have canvassed fishers from as far noth as Chunox, Corozal, to as far south as Punta Gorda, Toledo.

After leaving Belize today, Claudia returns home for a few weeks before moving on to Suriname and Barbados for more fieldwork. Finally, she will move on to St. Kitts and Nevis and to St. Vincent and the Grenadies.

Remote surveys will also be conducted in Guyana, Grenada, Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago.

The consultant told the CRFM that her visit to Belize was "very successful."

After the study is completed, a policy brief will be prepared for action by Caribbean leaders. The brief will highlight the major findings and recommendations, including policy options and strategies to increase efficiency, productivity and sustainability of the fisheries and aquaculture sector, while reducing economic risks.

The beneficiary countries are the 17 states which are members of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism, as well as countries covered by a UN/FAO project on the Sustainable Management of Bycatch in Trawl Fishing in Latin America and the Caribbean (the REBYC-II LAC), funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

Rainforest Seafoods is a leading Caribbean producer and exporter based in Jamaica, with operations in Belize. It exports safe seafood to the EU. (Photo: Rainforest Seafoods)

Belize City, Friday, 27 May 2016 (CRFM)—Caribbean economies are poised to benefit from a region-wide initiative to expand seafood market share, through the implementation of food safety measures to enable countries to get a bigger piece of the global pie, worth an estimated US$130 billion annually. Caribbean countries, including the Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, are now capitalizing on a coordinated approach to broaden the gateway to the growing market. CARIFORUM (CARICOM and the Dominican Republic) now exports about US$400 million worth of fish and seafood annually.

Belize and Jamaica are two Caribbean seafood exporters already tapping into markets controlled by the European Union (EU)—a tough market to access because of stringent standards which require that countries have systems in place to ensure that their exports are not only safe for consumption but also free from harmful pests and pathogens.

In the case of Belize, which has traditionally exported shrimp to the EU, it is moving to export conch to that market for the first time in 2016, according to Endhir Sosa, Senior Food Safety Inspector, Belize.

Sosa was among the eighteen professionals from CARIFORUM who recently received management training on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) in Iceland. The training was offered under the capacity-building component of an EU-sponsored project to implement SPS Measures under the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) regime. The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) are collaborating to implement the fisheries component of the project.

Demystifying SPS

Sosa broke down the meaning of this very technical term, which could just as well be the acronym for ‘safe and profitable seafood’: “In a nutshell, it’s just a series of procedures, of guidelines, of requirements, that one needs to implement to basically prove that what they are producing is safe,” the food safety expert commented.

“Confidence is what is key! It is what everybody seeks when it comes to the purchase and consumption of food products,” he said, adding that, “SPS is one of those routes where you can establish that confidence in your product.”

BAHA monitors seafood processed for trade (Photo: BAHA)

Sosa notes that, “Once you have an established SPS system in place and it is vetted and it’s shown to be functional, that will open markets locally, regionally and internationally."

This has been the case for Belize: “When BAHA [the Belize Agricultural Health Authority] first started in 2000, you could count the number of countries we were exporting to on your hand. It wasn’t more than 5 to 7. Today, thanks to SPS, thanks to the confidence that our SPS program has put into our products, not only fish, the markets have increased almost three-fold. Now we have a little over 30 markets,” Sosa said.

Building SPS capacity

Chairman of the Caribbean Fisheries Forum, Denzil Roberts, who is also the Chief Fisheries Officer in Guyana, notes that: “The fisheries sector within the CARIFORUM region continues to play an important role in rural development, food and nutrition security, income generation and foreign exchange earnings. However, it must be recognized that there is a paucity of skilled personnel within the region to further develop the sector in keeping with the emerging challenges.”

The intensive two-week training course recently held in Iceland served to help fill this knowledge gap in the Caribbean.

Susan Singh-Renton, the CRFM’s Deputy Executive Director, notes that, “The CRFM/UNU-FTP SPS Management Course has been very successful in achieving its objective of exposing CARIFORUM Fisheries and Agricultural Health and Food Safety experts to the key lessons and best practices of the Icelandic fishing industry in producing safe and wholesome fishery products of an international standard.”

Thor Asgeirsson, Deputy Programme Director at UNU-FTP,  talks with CARIFORUM SPS professionals in wrap-up session (Photo: CRFM)

She added that, “At the close of the course, participants reflected on and also documented how they would apply what they had learned to improve fisheries SPS management in their home countries.”

Jeannette Mateo, Director of Fisheries Resources at the Dominican Council for Fisheries and Aquaculture (CODOPESCA) in the Dominican Republic, suggested that nationals in her country, such as biologists, inspectors, fisheries officers and consumer protection agents, should be trained in basic concepts of SPS.

For his part, Roberts hopes that the trainees will immediately begin to impart what they have learned to others in their national networks. Roberts furthermore hopes that trainees will implement internationally recognized safety standards for seafood, thereby safeguarding the health of the local population while ensuring market access to meet global market demands.

Singh-Renton said that the CRFM will also strive to do its part to provide follow-up regional support for improved SPS management for the region's fishing industries, including facilitating continued networking among the course participants.

Gatekeepers fight against food fraud

One of the more frequent but often overlooked problems within the Caribbean is food fraud and mislabeling,” notes Dr. Wintorph Marsden, Senior Veterinary Officer in Jamaica’s Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries.

Marsden said that Jamaica is considered a major transshipment hub for fish and fishery products to the wider Caribbean region, and so the burden is on Jamaica, as a first point of entry, to implement a system of verification of products entering its food chain.

To combat food fraud, it is an absolute necessity to introduce traceability, said Marsden. This can now be done electronically, with modern systems of recording, such as the use barcodes, radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and other tracking media within the production chain.

In the Dominican Republic, Mateo’s job is to review all the supporting documentation for seafood imports and exports. She has observed, though, that, “Some of these documents might have statements to make the consumers believe that they are getting a high-quality product while they are actually getting products with less quality and deliberate mislabeling.”

An example, she said, is fish from the genus Pangasius, a catfish primarily sourced from the Asian market, which is being sold cheaply in the region and marketed at times as “grouper”—not only at supermarkets but also at some restaurants.

Vietnam catfish often passed off as grouper in the Caribbean (Photo: VASEP)

“While in Iceland, I learned that deliberate mislabeling of food, the substitution of products with cheaper alternatives, and false statements about the origin of foods, are all food fraud,” Mateo said.

“This is relevant to the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean, where imported fish are in some cases marketed at lower prices than the local ones, not only due to the lower production cost of fish products such as tilapia and Pangasius (catfish – sold as ‘basa’ or ‘swai’) in comparison with those produced in the country, but also because of unfair practices in trade,” Mateo said.

She said that as a result of the Iceland training, the Dominican Republic is now in the final stage of building an improved national SPS system for fishery and aquaculture products which was initiated with the support of the government of Chile.

Safe and healthy food also vital at home

Buyers opt for local snapper or imported seafood from the same freezer at a Belize supermarket (Photo: CRFM)

Whereas the move to implement SPS measures was originally focused on export trade, regional experts also indicate that they are vital to food safety and health even within our region.

“The Caribbean is known to be a huge importer of food products,” Sosa noted. “We have to look after our population, we have to look after the health of our people, we have to look after the health of our environment and our agricultural products; and thus SPS—although at this point it is mostly the industrialized countries that are pushing it, that are requiring it—should be really and truly across the board.”

Science-based risk assessment and risk analysis of imports are also key in protecting vital agriculture and fisheries industries.

“We have been mandated with the task of being the gatekeepers when it comes to food safety and agricultural health and we take that responsibility very seriously. Sometimes the public will get angry with us, because they truly don’t understand why we are doing this. ‘Why can’t I bring this across the border?’ But the realization is that if a disease [is introduced], it could potentially destroy an entire industry—whether it be, for example, bringing across poultry with avian influenza, or bringing in diseased shrimp—it could wipe out an entire multi-million-dollar industry,” Sosa warned.

Positioning small producers for export

Southern Fishermen's Cooperative in Grenada adds value to fish to produce smoked bacon for export to regional and international markets (Photo: CRFM)

Sosa noted that SPS measures were initially geared towards industrial markets but now they are encouraging small producers to position themselves for export by implementing SPS Measures.

“They might not have the finance to construct an elaborate facility, but we can start with the basics,” said Sosa, pointing to “good manufacturing practices and the sanitation standard operating procedures,” which, he said, would build confidence in products from even small producers.

More importantly, he said, implementing SPS measures is the first step that producers will need to make to even think about trading on the world market.

You may access the VIMEO version of the video here.

Belize City, Thursday, 5 May 2016 (CRFM)—The Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) is convening a meeting of fisheries experts to chart the course for a new study to look at the impacts of rising cost factors of fishing operations, such as labor, fuel, fishing gear, repair and maintenance, and capital.

The expert working group, which meets in Bridgetown, Barbados today, Thursday, 5 May and tomorrow, Friday, 6 May 2016, will include fisheries experts from CRFM Member States, the CRFM Secretariat, the private sector and the UN FAO, the partner agency for the initiative.

The consultant for the project, Claudia Stella Beltrán Turriago, an economist, will join the experts in Barbados, as they agree on the best methodology to carry out the study. They will also select beneficiary countries which will be targeted for fieldwork and remote surveys, which will entail surveys of small-scale and industrial fishers, suppliers, traders and exporters. 

After the study is completed, a policy brief will be prepared for action by Caribbean leaders. The brief will highlight the major findings and recommendations, including policy options and strategies to increase efficiency, productivity and sustainability of the fisheries and aquaculture sector, while reducing economic risks.

Milton Haughton, Executive Director of the CRFM, notes that, “This study should help fishers and fishing companies to improve profits and income. It is one of the many initiatives being pursued by the CRFM Member States to improve food security. We hope it will also transform, reposition and improve economic and ecological resilience in the fisheries sector, in response to climate change and in keeping with our commitments under the Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy.”

The beneficiary countries are the 17 states which are members of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism, as well as countries covered by a UN/FAO project on the Sustainable Management of Bycatch in Trawl Fishing in Latin America and the Caribbean (the REBYC-II LAC), funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

The Caribbean region is very susceptible to fluctuations in world food prices due to high dependence on imported products. The region’s food security is furthermore threatened by the adverse impacts of climate change and climate variability, which exacerbate droughts and floods in major agriculture producing nations, and which are also affecting the region’s coastal and marine ecosystems, like coral reefs, and our fisheries.

In highlighting the need for the study, the CRFM notes that, “Member States need to guard against future economic shocks, such as spikes in fuel prices and other inputs; reduce economic risks; modernize with a view to improving the efficiency of the region’s fishing fleets; reduce barriers to accessing new markets; and address price fluctuations for commercially important species by promoting and developing value-added products.”

Belize City, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 (CRFM)--Fisheries experts from across the Caribbean region are traveling to Guyana this week for the 14th Meeting of the Caribbean Fisheries Forum -- the primary technical deliberative body of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM). The Forum will be meeting in Georgetown on Thursday, 7 April and Friday, 8 April to undertake its annual stocktaking and planning for the fisheries and aquaculture sector.

The event will bring together more than 50 participants, including directors of fisheries, chief fisheries officers, and other development partners, such as NGOs and international organizations like the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, which work with the CRFM in promoting the development, management and conservation of the Caribbean’s fisheries resources.

Justin Rennie, Chief Fisheries Officer of Grenada, will demit chairmanship of the Forum to Denzil Roberts, Chief Fisheries Officer of Guyana, for the 12-month period spanning the new program year which commenced on 1 April. A new vice chairman will also be selected.

CRFM Executive Director, Milton Haughton, highlighted the most pressing issues on the agenda: “We’re discussing a lot of emerging issues in the region. We are looking at how to improve conservation and management of key species, apply and use the value chain approach in order to increase benefits, such as increased income and export potential. We are discussing sanitary and phytosanitary capacity as a part of our overall strategy to strengthen our trade capacity, so that we can indeed export more to key international markets and also to provide greater quality and safety in terms of the fish and seafood that we provide for our people as well as our guests and tourists coming into the region.”

Haughton added that the 17 CRFM Member States are also looking at ways to strengthen the linkage between fisheries and tourism, “because the tourism sector is a huge sector and we believe we have a golden opportunity to enhance the linkages between fisheries and tourism to derive more benefits—more income, more employment opportunities—for our fishers and their communities.”

The Forum will also review the region’s progress in implementing the Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy (CCCFP), as well as initiatives to strengthen research, and institutional and human capacity through the CRFM’s collaboration with a number of development partners such as the University of the West Indies (UWI), the University of Florida in the USA, the International Ocean Institute, Dalhousie University, Canada; the University of Wollongong in Australia, and the United Nations University in Iceland.

This collaboration is vital in ensuring that CRFM Member States are equipped with the human and institutional capacity needed to tackle the increasing challenges of sustainable development that confront them—challenges which are being exacerbated by climate change.

One such challenge is the emergence of the Sargassum seaweed on the region’s beaches and in the coastal waters.

“Last year and 2011 we had massive influx of Sargassum seaweed on our beaches that affected our fisheries. So we are putting in place measures to deal with the Sargassum seaweed should it return in the future—we hope it won’t, but just in case it does—and from all indications, we are expecting to have more of this seaweed coming on our shores and in our coastal waters,” Haughton said.

Haughton said that associated with the Sargassum seaweed are large numbers of juvenile dolphinfish (locally known as mahimahi)—which is a very important target species in the Eastern Caribbean.

“Our fishermen, of course, once they see these in large quantities, even though they are juveniles, they will catch them. So we are promoting the implementation of emergency, precautionary management measures; that is, minimum size limits for the dolphinfish fishery,” Haughton said.

Aquaculture is also big on the agenda, and the Forum will discuss a new 5-year aquaculture action plan, which they will be asked to endorse. Since land mass is limited in our region, non-conventional aquaculture schemes are being promoted and explored.

“Aquaponics is something that has been growing in the region—this is growing fish and vegetables together in a limited area using re-circulating water systems. This is more suitable for the smaller islands, like Antigua and Barbuda, and Barbados,” Haughton explained.

On the second day of the meeting, the Forum members will discuss a proposal from the United States to support fishers through a risk insurance facility, Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), which will be handling the technical details for the development of the policy. Under this regime, CRFM Member States will make contributions to the scheme in addition to the initial contribution of the USA.

The Caribbean Fisheries Forum will conclude its meeting with recommendations to be submitted at the next meeting of the CRFM’s Ministerial Council—the chief policy making body on fisheries in the Caribbean Region.

IICA as the implementing agency for the 10th EDF sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures Project and the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), a Partner under the Project to develop/strengthen the national and/or regional regulatory and industry capacity related to health and food safety in fisheries and aquaculture to meet the SPS requirements of international trade in areas such as inspection, import/export certification, diagnostics, risk assessment, surveillance, reporting.

Closing date for receipt of Expression of Interest has been extended to 6 May 2016 at 4:00pm Eastern Caribbean Time.  Click here for further details

Administration Information Note

Draft Agenda

Antigua and Barbuda Case Study

Antigua and Barbuda Case Study Presentation

Barbados Case Study

Barbados Case Study Presentation

Belize Case Study

Belize Case Study Presentation

 Grenada Case Study

Title

Study on the impacts of rising cost factors such as capital, labour, maintenance and energy costs on fishing operations in the CRFM Member States and REBYC-II LAC participating countries

 Summary

The CRFM Secretariat is inviting expressions of interest from suitably qualified persons to undertake a short term assignment to review the impact of rising cost factors, such as capital, labour, maintenance and energy costs on fisheries operations in the CRFM Member States and REBYC-II LAC participating countries, and propose appropriate policy options and strategies for dealing with the resulting issues in order to improve efficiency, improve on productivity and sustainability, and reduce economic risks to the sector.  The project will be conducted over a period of ten (10) months between December 2015 and November 2016.

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St. George’s, Grenada, 13 May 2015 (CRFM): Fisheries Ministers from Member States of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) are expected to sign off on the Declaration on Spiny Lobster by way of a resolution, when they convene the 9th Meeting of the Ministerial Council of the CRFM on Friday, 15 May 2015 at Flamboyant Hotel in St. George's, Grenada.

The non-binding declaration establishes a roadmap for closer cooperation among the 17 CARICOM/CRFM States to ensure long-term conservation and sustainable use of the lobster resources.

The Ministerial Council meeting is scheduled to open at 9:00 a.m. The feature address will be delivered by Honourable Roland Bhola, Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Grenada, who will assume the chairmanship of the Council on the occasion of the meeting from Honourable Johnson Drigo, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Dominica.

Milton Haughton, Executive Director of the CRFM Secretariat in Belize, said: “This is another important policy-level meeting of the CRFM Member States as they seek to strengthen cooperative arrangements, to realize the full development potential of the fisheries and aquaculture sector in the region.

“Our vision and long-term goal is to transform the region’s fisheries and aquaculture into sustainable systems, in order to optimize the sector’s contribution to food and nutritional security, improved livelihoods and wealth generation, through the application of science and technology, good governance, and inclusive, sustainable development strategies.”

When they meet this Friday, the Caribbean Fisheries Ministers will be reviewing the progress being made in the implementation of existing policy instruments and programs. In charting the way forward, they will also make decisions on the next steps in the transformation process.

High on their agenda will be the endorsement of the process now underway to develop the Plan of Action to facilitate the implementation of the Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy (CCCFP).

The Fisheries Ministers will also discuss an initiative recently announced by the Government of the United States during the Caribbean Energy Summit on climate risk insurance for the Caribbean fisheries sector. This is in line with efforts to achieve Climate Smart Food Security (CSFS) using a Risk Insurance Facility (RIF).

The Ministerial Council will finally receive a full report on the outcome and recommendations of the 13th Meeting of the Caribbean Fisheries Forum, held in St. George’s, Grenada at the end of March this year.

The Ministerial Council of the CRFM is the arm of the CRFM which has primary responsibility for determining the policies of the organisation, resource allocation, cooperative agreements, and related decision-making.

 February 2, 2015 – Belize City, Belize…CARICOM acknowledges the contribution of the Government of Japan in promoting sustainable use and management of living marine resources for the benefit of the people of the CARICOM States and Japan.

Mr. Milton Haughton, Executive Director, CARICOM’s Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) said, “the fact that Japan has been willing and steadfast in contributing so generously to promote sustainable use of marine resources in the CARICOM countries, even in these challenging economic times, is in my opinion, a true reflection of the special bond of friendship and importance that Japan attaches to our relationship.”

Over the past 20 years, Japan has emerged as the major contributor toward the development of the fisheries sector at the bilateral level within the Caribbean.  Japan has been providing vital and substantial support in upgrading and improving the artisanal fishing fleet; fishing ports and other shore-based infrastructure for storage, processing and marketing of fish; as well as provision of training in gear technology, processing and quality assurance, resource management and conservation of fisheries,” Mr Haughton added.

The 20-year partnership between the Government of Japan and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) culminated with a series of in-country seminars in 6 CARICOM countries, which discussed national level interventions supported by Japan, with presentations on the successes as well as the challenges. A regional seminar took place in Trinidad and Tobago on 4 December 2014 where regional fisheries officials and stakeholders reviewed the outcomes over the years under the partnership Agreement entitled “A New Framework for Japan - CARICOM Cooperation for the Twenty-first Century”, towards strengthening the relationship between the CARICOM Governments and Japan in promoting sustainable in the fisheries sector.

Under this Agreement, the Government of Japan provided funding and technical assistance to CARICOM Governments in several areas of economic and social development. These included among others, Trade and Investment, Education and Human Resource Development, Disaster Risk Reduction, Environment and Climate Change, Integration in the Global Economy, and Fisheries and Agriculture. 

 At the regional seminar facilitated by the CRFM Secretariat in collaboration with the Government of Japan, through support of the Caribbean Fisheries Co-management (CARIFICO) project CARICOM officials, fisheries country representatives, experts from regional institutions and the Caribbean Network of Fisherfolk Organisation (CNFO) acknowledged Japan’s contribution in the fisheries sector in the CARICOM States at both national and regional levels during the past 20 years.

His Excellency, Ambassador Yoshimasa Tezuka for Japan in Trinidad and Tobago attending the seminar reiterated his country's commitment to the sustainable development of the fisheries in the Caribbean.  He said, "The Caribbean and Japan share many similarities, from islands being surrounded by water to being vulnerable to hurricanes.  Both Japan and the Caribbean can learn and share best practices and exchange expertise, toward making our countries socio-economic and environmentally resilient" He added, "That the 20 years of CARICOM-Japan Friendship Year 2014 is a momentous time for both Caribbean and Japan to harness deeper relations."

The following are some of the areas CARICOM Members have benefited from the 20-year relations with Japan:

• The construction of port facilities for fishing boats, and fresh fish markets and attendant facilities, including cold storage, and in one case, a bus terminal.
• Training attachments of fisheries personnel in Japan, as well as the attachment of Japanese technical experts to the region to facilitate technology transfer and human resource capacity building, have made a significant positive contribution to fisheries development in CARICOM.
• One of the earliest major regional projects was a technical cooperation project started in 1996 at the CFTDI in Trinidad and Tobago. This “regional fisheries training project” provided fisheries officers in the region with training opportunities in the fields of fishing methods, marine engineering and fish processing.
• Provision of in-country JICA expertise from as far back as 1990, up to the present, to provide technical assistance included aquaculture / mariculture; fishing gear and methods; engine maintenance; coastal fishing technology; FAD development; long line fishing technology; fish marketing and product development; and marine biology.
• JOCV volunteers also carried out community development activities that assisted fishers.

The contribution of the Government of Japan towards the sustainable development and management of aquaculture and fisheries in the CARICOM countries continued with a 3 year regional study (2009-2012), which prepared a Master Plan on sustainable use and conservation of fisheries resources for coastal community development.

The Government of Japan is also currently supporting a follow-up project, the CARIFICO Project, to begin implementing some of the recommendations contained in the Regional Master Plan.

The participation of stakeholders at national and regional levels of cooperation and interventions recognized that Japan and CARICOM Members shared a similar philosophy on sustainable use of marine resources and made recommendations on the scope for  new interventions through emerging issues and priority areas consistant with the Caribbean Common Common Fisheries Policy and the CARICOM Strategic Plan.  These include:

• Continued assistance with capacity building and training.
• Obtaining baseline information on the deep slope resources to determine the potential for this type of fishery and management requirements.
• Upgrade of processing and marketing facilities to support better access to local, regional and international markets.
• Develop post-harvest processing facilities for small-scale fisheries.
• Provide  technical assistance in
  • • post-harvest quality control for small-scale fisheries
    • boat building with fiber glass
    • fishing net construction and repairing
    • outboard engine maintenance and repairs
    • utilisation of By-catch Reduction Devices
    • business management and marketing.
• Support Aquaculture activities in general and, in particular, marine aquaculture such as, but not limited to, grouper farming, mangrove oyster farming and culture of selected ornamental species.
• Support the development [and/or obtaining] of cost effective sources of feed for aquaculture
• Study for potential markets for underdeveloped fisheries.
• Consider support to intra-regional pelagic and/or deep slope demersal fishermen’s exchange programmes, as appropriate.
• Support scientific research (stock assessment) of main target species of artisanal fisheries (including for Penaeus species in collaboration with Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana).
• Support scientific research on invasive species such as lionfish and Sargassum to consider the current and long term impacts on the regional fisheries.
• Facilitate continued collaboration with CFTDI and further implementation / expansion of the Basic Fishermen’s Training Course.
• Strengthening fishers and fishers’ organization.
• Capacity building of stakeholders along the industry chain is important for successful uptake of emerging new ideas and technologies.

In closing the seminar, participants noted that the relationship with Japan was very beneficial to the CARICOM countries and expressed their gratitude to Japan for the support provided over the past 20 years to strengthen sustainable use, conservation and management of the marine living resources and improve livelihoods of coastal communities. They also expressed the desire to further strengthen and deepen the bond of friendship and cooperation between CARICOM and Japan over the next 20 years.

For additional information contact:

Milton Haughton

CRFM Executive Director

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Adelle Roopchand

Media Relations

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http://www.crfm.net/  https://twitter.com/CaribFisheries

 [Ends]

About CRFM:The Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) was officially inaugurated on 27 March 2003, in Belize City, Belize, where it is headquartered, following the signing of the “Agreement Establishing the CRFM” on February 4, 2002. It is an inter-governmental organization with its mission being to “To promote and facilitate the responsible utilization of the region's fisheries and other aquatic resources for the economic and social benefits of the current and future population of the region”. The CRFM consist of three bodies – the Ministerial Council; the Caribbean Fisheries Forum; and the CRFM Secretariat. Its members are Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and the Turks and Caicos Islands.