BELIZE CITY, BELIZE; WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 2013 –

National and regional fish experts from across the Caribbean are meeting in St. Vincent and the Grenadines this week for the 9th Annual Scientific Meeting, organized and sponsored by the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM).

The group—which is meeting in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines this week, until Friday, June 14—is currently engaged in working group meetings to conduct scientific data analyses for providing advice to the region’s fishery managers, to review fisheries management progress and ongoing challenges, and to identify priorities for advancing statistical and other scientific approaches required to support new and emerging management needs of major fisheries within the CRFM membership and the Wider Caribbean.

During this 9th Annual Scientific Meeting, national fisheries reports from CRFM member states—which provide details on production data and the fishing fleet—are also being presented.

As in previous years, the scientific meeting information enables fisheries managers to understand more about the status of key commercially important fisheries across the region, and required management actions to ensure sustainability and continued profitability of the industry.

Regional conservation and management plans for the billfish and the blackfin tuna, respectively, as well as the proposed regional lionfish control strategy are among the items which are being discussed by the fisheries experts.

Central to the new approaches being integrated in fisheries management strategies across the region are the precautionary and ecosystem-based approaches to management, which is also giving consideration to the realities imposed by global environmental change, and particularly climate change. The shift in strategic planning also necessitates a renewed focus on disaster risk management, especially in light of the known vulnerability of fishers and fishing communities in many Caribbean states to the damaging impacts of hurricanes.

The Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), in collaboration with the ACP Fish II Programme, continues its efforts to boost fisheries management in the Caribbean. In an attempt to increase project monitoring and evaluation at the regional level, St. Vincent and Grenadines hosted a CRFM / ACP Fish II Regional Validation Workshop: Review of queen conch management options. Participants from fisheries administrations of 15 CARIFORUM countries and the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) attended.

The 3-day regional validation workshop was held from June 6 – 8 at the Methodist Hall, Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The objectives of the workshop were to (i) review, discuss and endorse documents related to the status of queen conch management in the region and the synthesis report on standardized scientific approaches for assessment of queen conch; and (ii) review and finalize the Regional Management Options Paper for queen conch.

The Regional Management Option Paper was developed from the results of the field missions to The Bahamas, Belize, Dominican Republic and Grenada, and regional analyses, covering other countries with important conch fisheries and distinctive management systems.

The workshop forms part of a larger global Programme to strengthen fisheries management, improve food security and alleviate poverty in 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) member states. “The ACP Fish II Programme is a four-and-a-half year, EUR 30.0 million programme funded by the European Union. It has been formulated to design and develop planning and management capacities in ACP countries,” indicated Sandra Grant, ACP Fish II Programme Regional Manager for the Caribbean.

The offices of the Caribbean node of the ACP Fish II Programme are located in the office premises of the CRFM Secretariat’s headquarters in Belize. This was strategically located there to facilitate closer linkages and easier access and collaboration with CRFM Member States, through the CRFM Secretariat. Over EUR 3.3 million has been allocated to implement 34 national and regional fisheries and aquaculture projects in the Caribbean Region. Through close collaboration with the CRFM Secretariat, to date, 16 of these projects have been completed, including aquaculture development strategies for three countries and fisheries and aquaculture policies and action plans for four countries. At the regional level a study to assess the status of monitoring, control, and surveillance and IUU (illegal, unreported, unregulated) fishing in CARIFORUM countries was undertaken. The Programme also seeks to build the capacity of national and regional fisher folk organizations by providing training in the ecosystem approach to fisheries management, climate change, and business management.

Policymakers aim to boost standard of living of fisherfolk, particularly in small-scale fisheries

/ Belize City, Wednesday, May 29, 2013

/ The Seventh Meeting of the Ministerial Council of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) opens at 9:00 a.m. this Friday, May 31, 2013, at the Accra Beach Hotel and Spa in Rockley, Christ Church, Barbados.
 
Participation will be drawn from The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which are all Member States of the CRFM.
 
At the upcoming Ministerial Council meeting, Fisheries Ministers from CRFM Member States and their advisors will receive an update on the progress of work activities being undertaken by the CRFM Secretariat, Member States and network partners, and provide them with policy guidance on programmes and plans for the development and management of fisheries and aquaculture. They will also approve a number of regional policy and strategic documents aimed at strengthening governance arrangements, conservation and sustainable development of the fisheries and aquaculture sector in the region.

According to the CRFM Executive Director, Milton Haughton, “This is a very important meeting in terms of forging a new strategic direction for the fisheries sector. The Council will consider a number of coordinated initiatives aimed at progressively improving: (i) the standard of living of our fisherfolk, particularly those in the small-scale fisheries sector; (ii) the region’s food security, by providing consumers in the region with adequate supplies of safe and affordably priced fish and seafood; and (iii) the frameworks to protect and conserve the fish stocks and associated ecosystems from overexploitation and degradation due to pollution and other human activities.”

The Council is expected to endorse the new CRFM Strategic Plan (2013–2021); the Regional Strategy, Action Plan and Proposal for Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management in Fisheries; the Regional Manual and Strategy to Control the Lionfish Invasion; the CRFM Communication and Information Technology Strategy; and the Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem Strategic Action Programme. It will also be asked to support the efforts of the Caribbean Network of Fisherfolk Organizations (CNFO), as they strive for greater participation in the decision-making process.
 
Updates will also be provided on the Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy; the implementation of the Castries (St. Lucia) Declaration on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing; progress in aquaculture; and the latest developments in CITES and in the USA as they relate to Queen Conch conservation and the petition for listing as an endangered species.
 
The CRFM Ministerial Council is the arm of the CRFM which charts the policies of the regional fisheries organization. The Council is also responsible for providing leadership to the CRFM in the areas of research; fisheries management and conservation; approval of strategic plans and policy positions; work plans and budgets; fisheries cooperative agreements; and donor projects.

SCHEDULE FOR PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES

(Note changes for Belize. See flyers below)

BARBADOS: Thursday, 25 April 2013, 6.00-8.00 pm

Venue: Accra Beach Hotel

Fisheries and the environment: Fisheries management legislation and principles of international law.

JAMAICA: Monday April 29, 6:00 p.m.-8.00 pm

Venue: The Aubrey Fraser Lecture Theatre, Norman Manley Law School, 8 Ring Road, Mona Campus, UWI

The Transposition of Principles of International Law into Domestic Legislation to Combat Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) Fishing

BELIZE: Thursday, May 2, 2:30 p.m.-4.30 pm

Venue: The Radisson, Caracol Room

Marine Resource Management with a Focus on the Role of Using the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Maritime Boundary Delimitation and Fisheries Cases.

BELIZE CITY, BELIZE; THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2013 –

Professor Warwick Gullett, Dean of Law at the University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, and Deputy Director of Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS), Australia’s only multidisciplinary university-based centre dedicated to research, education and training on ocean law, maritime security and natural marine resource management, will be in the Caribbean for a very important working visit next week.

The professor’s visit to the region is in line with a 5-year Memorandum of Understanding the parties signed last September, after 14 fisheries professionals from Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Suriname, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent & the Grenadines attended the first Fisheries Law and Management Training Workshop at the University of Wollongong in Australia developed jointly for them by the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) and ANCORS.

Dr. Gullett will deliver a series of public lectures on developments in fisheries, and ocean law and policy during his visit to Barbados, Jamaica and Belize.

He is scheduled to arrive on Monday, April 22, in Barbados, where he will also participate in the Eleventh Meeting of the CRFM Forum of Fisheries Officers. While in Barbados, the professor will meet with representatives of the Fisheries Department, the Law Faculty and the Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES), UWI. He will also be hosted at a public Lecture at Accra Beach Hotel on Thursday, April 25.

The topic of that session will be Fisheries and the environment: Fisheries management legislation and principles of international law. It will address issues and challenges affecting the implementation of international principles, such as the precautionary principle in domestic fisheries law to protect, conserve and manage fisheries and marine biodiversity.

Professor Gullett travels next to Jamaica, where he is due to meet on Monday, April 29 and Tuesday, April 30 with officials of the Jamaica Fisheries Division and the Ministry of Agriculture; the Principal of Norman Manley Law School, and Head of the Department of Life Sciences at UWI-Jamaica.

In Jamaica, Dr. Gullett will also deliver a public lecture, this time focusing on The Transposition of Principles of International Law into Domestic Legislation to Combat Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) Fishing. Emphasis will be especially placed on the legal and policy framework for protection, conservation and management of marine living resources, with special focus on combating the scourges of poaching and IUU fishing by foreign and domestic fishers.

The third and final leg of Professor’s Gullett’s Caribbean tour is Belize, where he has meetings scheduled with the Fisheries Department, the Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute, the University of Belize, and the CRFM, headquartered in Belize.

Professor Warwick Gullet will deliver his third public lecture on the occasion of this Caribbean tour on Thursday, May 2, on the topic, Marine Resource Management with a Focus on the Role of Using the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Maritime Boundary Delimitation and Fisheries Cases. During the presentation, Professor Gullett will examine the process and risk of asking the ICJ to determine a maritime boundary dispute (which would follow a sovereignty determination), and he will explain the evolving approach in international law to determine maritime boundaries.

Before his return to Australia on Friday, May 3, Professor Gullett intends to further consultations with officials of CRFM member states and the Secretariat, as well as UWI, to strengthen collaboration between ANCORS/University of Wollongong and key Caribbean regional institutions in fisheries and marine resource management.

BELIZE CITY, BELIZE; THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2013 –

Heads of national fisheries authorities from the seventeen member states and observers of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) will attend the 11th Meeting of the Caribbean Fisheries Forum from Wednesday, April 24 to Friday, April 26, 2013, at Accra Beach Hotel and Spa in Rockley, Christ Church, Barbados, in The West Indies.

Inaugurated on 26 March 2003 in Belize, the CRFM’s goal is to promote the sustainable use of fisheries and aquaculture resources in and among member states, by the development, management and conservation of these resources in collaboration with stakeholders, to benefit the people of the Caribbean.

The Caribbean Fisheries Forum is one of three organs of the CRFM. Its mandate is to provide technical leadership to the organization, including scientific advice to the Ministerial Council, a second organ of the CRFM whose tasks include setting the CRFM’s policies as well as determining how resources are to be allocated.

At the upcoming meeting, the forum will be updated on the progress of technical activities being undertaken by the CRFM (and more specifically the Secretariat, the CRFM member states and network partners). The team will also prepare forward-looking recommendations which are to be presented to Caribbean fisheries ministers when they meet in council on Friday, May 31, 2013 in Barbados.

The recently concluded CRFM Communication and Information Technology Strategy will be presented to the Forum. There will also be important updates on progress made to date with implementing the Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy, as well as the Castries (St. Lucia) Declaration on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing; the Regional Strategy, Action Plan and Proposal for Climate Change Adaptation and DRM in Fisheries; and the Strategic Action Programme for the Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem.

Furthermore, the Caribbean Fisheries Forum will assess work progress in fisheries policy, legislation and institutional development; fisheries management and development; the state of commercially important fish stocks in the region such as lobster, shrimp, conch, tunas, coastal pelagics, and flyingfish; fisheries research; statistics and information; human resource development and capacity-building initiatives; finance and administration, and resource mobilization.

CRFM Executive Director, Milton Haughton said this will be a very important meeting marking the 10th anniversary of the CRFM. The meeting, he said, will provide an opportunity to take stock of progress and setbacks over the past 10 years and to agree on the strategic directions and priorities for the next 10 years.

The forum will also receive an update on the review of the petition in the USA to have the queen conch listed for trade restrictions under CITES.

The CRFM’s Independent Performance Review and new Strategic Plan (2013–2021), just concluded through regional consultations, as well as its annual work plan and budget 2013/2014, will be presented to the Caribbean Fisheries Forum for its review and endorsement, along with audited financial statements for the years ended 31 March 2012 and 2011.

CRFM member states 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.