Cab­i­net has an­nounced it will es­tab­lish a mul­ti-stake­hold­er com­mit­tee to ex­am­ine the con­cerns raised by fish­er folk about the col­lapse of the fish­ery as an im­me­di­ate re­sult of the seis­mic bomb­ings (which are not puls­es, but are high deci­bel, shat­ter­ing air gun ex­plo­sions).The Right Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter and her Cab­i­net are to be com­mend­ed for promis­ing to ap­point an in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee to ex­am­ine the con­cerns raised by the fish­er folk over the past 10+ years; but this is too lit­tle, too late.

The Hon De­vant Ma­haraj had promised the Sec­re­tary of Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) in a meet­ing at his of­fice on Jan­u­ary 17, 2013, and in the pres­ence of his tech­ni­cal staff and the Di­rec­tor of Fish­eries, that a Com­mit­tee would be ap­point­ed to ad­vise Cab­i­net im­me­di­ate­ly. To­day is No­vem­ber 7, ten months lat­er, and all of our fish­er folk com­mu­ni­ties are suf­fer­ing while scarci­ty is caus­ing fish prices to es­ca­late.

Cab­i­net has not an­nounced a mora­to­ri­um on all fu­ture seis­mic sur­veys, ap­pli­ca­tions of which are cur­rent­ly be­fore the EMA. Cab­i­net has not an­nounced the adop­tion of any best prac­tice safe­guards, as in the reg­u­lat­ed sur­veys in Cana­da, Ire­land, New Zealand, Nor­way, etc.

Re­gret­ful­ly, the Hon Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj is be­ing mis­in­formed. No fish­er folk from the na­tion­al body, Trinidad and To­ba­go Unit­ed Fish­er Folk (TUFF) or FFOS, have ever been con­sult­ed on any guide­line or method­ol­o­gy for com­pen­sa­tion. Did the en­er­gy sec­tor, the EMA Chair­man, the Fish­eries Di­vi­sion and the IMA Chair­man con­sult them­selves?Madame Prime Min­is­ter, the con­cerns raised by the T&T fish­er folk need to be ad­dressed with greater ur­gency.

Cab­i­net has not an­nounced a sub­mis­sion time­frame for this com­mit­tee, and yet Petrotrin has an­nounced that even though it does not present­ly have a CEC for its planned six-month seis­mic bomb­ing, that it will be­gin on De­cem­ber 1.We con­tin­ue to ap­peal for your Gov­ern­ment's in­ter­ven­tion to en­sure good pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion for the lit­tle peo­ple whose liveli­hoods are be­ing van­dalised by bil­lion-dol­lar Go­liaths.

From four week­sto six months?

We con­tin­ue to sub­mit that:

1. The EMA are not ob­serv­ing the "pre­cau­tion­ary prin­ci­ple."

2. The EMA are not con­sid­er­ing the mount­ing re­search which has been done world­wide, some of which FFOS had pro­vid­ed free of charge.

3. The EMA are not con­sid­er­ing that this Petrotrin sur­vey is be­ing planned for an ex­treme­ly long du­ra­tion (when nor­mal­ly most sur­veys have been four to six weeks long, this one is planned for six months.

4. This Petrotrin sur­vey is planned for very shal­low wa­ter where the im­pact is ac­cel­er­at­ed.

5. The EMA are ig­nor­ing the fish­er folk's da­ta on col­lapsed catch rates for the same ef­fort in the same lo­ca­tion years af­ter the seis­mic bomb­ing in that lo­ca­tion had stopped.

Get prop­er ad­vice

We con­tin­ue to ap­peal to the Hon Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj, and to our Prime Min­is­ter, to stop/post­pone this bomb­ing mon­ster un­til the Gov­ern­ment can be prop­er­ly ad­vised. The fish­er folk de­c­la­ra­tion of Oc­to­ber 2 prop­er­ly de­scribes our unit­ed po­si­tion:

�2 That the EMA im­me­di­ate­ly adopt best prac­tices for con­duct­ing seis­mic bomb­ing with­in the ma­rine ar­eas of Trinidad and To­ba­go

�2 That the EMA re­quire an En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact As­sess­ment study pri­or to grant­i­ng any Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance for con­duct­ing any seis­mic bomb­ings, in­clud­ing cur­rent ap­pli­ca­tions for the longest du­ra­tion bomb­ing ever, such as CEC No. 3956/2013, CEC No. 3957/2013 and CEC No. 3963/2013;

�2 That an im­me­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on fu­ture seis­mic bomb­ings be es­tab­lished un­til and un­less oil and gas com­pa­nies agree to car­ry out En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact As­sess­ments con­sis­tent with ex­ist­ing best prac­tice;

�2 That Cer­tifi­cates of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance be is­sued with terms and con­di­tions that pro­vide best prac­tice pro­ce­dures for seis­mic bomb­ings, which in­clude no seis­mic ex­plo­sions in spawn­ing or nurs­ery ar­eas, spawn­ing times and on the mi­gra­to­ry paths of fish; and

�2 That long-term stud­ies be con­duct­ed by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty and the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs to gath­er da­ta on ex­ist­ing fish stock to guide terms and con­di­tions of fu­ture Cer­tifi­cates of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance for all seis­mic bomb­ings.

We will con­tin­ue to mo­bilise our mem­bers against this in­hu­mane and fla­grant abuse as we ap­peal to the Gov­ern­ment and the EMA to take a long hard look at our con­cerns.

Pe­ter Glo­den

Pres­i­dent, Trinidad and

To­ba­go Unit­ed Fish­er Folk

Kishore Boodram

Vice Pres­i­dent, Trinidad

and To­ba­go Unit­ed Fish­er Folk

Di­anne Chris­t­ian-Sim­mons

Pres­i­dent, Co­corite

Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion

Ter­rence Bed­doe

Pres­i­dent, FFOS

Gary Aboud

Sec­re­tary, FFOS.