Michelle Loubon

Mar­itime at­tor­ney Nyree Al­fon­so says the im­po­si­tion of the state of emer­gency (SoE) will re­dound to fish­er­men's ben­e­fit since they are vic­tims of crime on land and sea. Al­fon­so said she was al­so sym­pa­thet­ic to the an­glers' ex­or­bi­tant fi­nan­cial and stock loss­es. The cur­few has been im­posed along 362 kilo­me­tres of the coast­line-ex­tend­ing to three nau­ti­cal miles. Re­cent­ly, fish­er­men from To­co to Ica­cos com­plained ve­he­ment­ly about los­ing in­come as a re­sult of the SoE. To off­set their loss­es, the au­thor­i­ties in­tro­duced Coastal Zone re­stric­tion pass­es.

In­ter­viewed on Fri­day, Al­fon­so said: "When the first cur­few came out, I imag­ine it would have been ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult. The new per­mu­ta­tion is you can stay out but you have to re­main moored (at an­chor). It is un­for­tu­nate there is a loss of rev­enue. But the ma­jor­i­ty has to give way." Al­fon­so added: "Fish­er­men are vic­tims of crime both on land and sea. Their se­cu­ri­ty is im­por­tant even if it is for a short pe­ri­od. I'm al­ways sym­pa­thet­ic to them be­cause they get robbed of their fish. They are sub­ject to pi­rates and Coast Guard search­es. Peo­ple come and steal their en­gines and their catch. Fish­er­men have al­ways been a prime tar­get for crime. I would hope they would be sup­port­ive of the pa­trols on sea and at land."

To com­pound it, fish­er­men have to deal with the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties and the Guardia Na­cional. In a pre­vi­ous in­ter­view (May 25) fish­er­men at Ce­dros and Ica­cos claimed drug deal­ers mas­querad­ing as fish­er­men are mak­ing life dif­fi­cult for them. They be­lieve it might have led to sev­en of them be­ing held while fish­ing off Sol­da­do Rock and thrown in­to a Venezuela jail. Al­fon­so al­so deemed most of the fish­ing "ar­ti­san", to de­scribe small scale fish­ing us­ing pirogues and nets.

She said it took place six or eight miles out to sea. "Coastal fish­ing takes place much fur­ther out than that. If they are fish­ing with­in a three mile ra­dius, one hopes it would be suf­fi­cient to go out and stay an­chored. Many fish­er­men fish in the Ex­clu­sive Eco­nom­ic Zone which is 200 miles from the land." On the flip side, Al­fon­so said: "I imag­ine the cur­few is the straw that broke the camel's back. I al­ways say I don't want to be a fish­er­man. The life of a fish­er­man is hard."

Fish­er­men lose $$

Mean­while, To­co fish­er­men like Caleb Moore con­tin­ue to com­plain about their loss­es. He said: "Even when we take the fish to the Ari­ma mar­ket, peo­ple are not buy­ing it. Down at Saly­bia, we lost about 350 lbs ($20 per lb). We can't go and pick up the nets. Raphal Lakhan said: "We are un­der strain and pres­sure. The fish­er­men came in with $ 25,000 worth of fish. And out of it all they got was $1,500. It is not cut­ting it." Mid­dle man Lyn­don Julien said he is aware on­ly one boat was go­ing out at Saly­bia. "Most of the guys are not go­ing out. They are look­ing for Cepep work." In­stead of the Ari­ma mar­ket, Julien head­ed in­to Port-of-Spain to sell his fish.

More in­fo

Fish­er­men can ap­ply for Coastal Zone Re­stric­tion Pass­es at the Coast Guard Se­cu­ri­ty Of­fice, Pem­broke Street, Port-of-Spain. Fish­er­men who wish to set off be­fore 11 pm and an­chor un­til 4 am, don't need per­mits. There is no ad­di­tion­al fee for ap­pli­ca­tion or pro­cess­ing. For fur­ther in­fo call 634-3138.