Caribbean 360 reports on a Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) management plan to help Eastern Caribbean islands sustainably manage shared flying fish resources.
In a release issued to report on the eighth CRFM Scientific Meeting, which took place last month in Kingstown in the St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the regional fisheries organization revealed that it had developed this plan (to be implemented by the middle of next year) in collaboration with United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Western Central Atlantic Fishery Commission.
The CRFM said once implemented, this management plan would “represent a landmark achievement for formal regional cooperation in the management of a shared fishery resource among countries of the Eastern Caribbean”.
Every year, the CRFM scientific meeting completes evaluations of a number of major fisheries in the region to determine if the natural fish populations remain healthy, and also if and what management controls are required for continued and improved performance of the dependent fishing industries.
At this year’s meeting, fisheries scientists from 12 CRFM member states: Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Turks and Caicos Islands, completed evaluations of the health and economic performance of Jamaica’s queen conch fishery, as well as the seabob (shrimp) fisheries of Guyana and Suriname.
Click here for more on this story and visit the CRFM website for more Caribbean fisheries information.
