Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment, Dr Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie, Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Board (EDB) Dr Rikhi Per­manand and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the De­part­ment of Fish­eries, the Sea Food In­dus­tries De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (SIDC), lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Fish­er­men's As­so­ci­a­tions of To­co and Matelot met re­cent­ly as part of a site vis­it and fact find­ing mis­sion led by the Min­istry of Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment's Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Board.

Sup­port­ing the min­istry on this ini­tia­tive were Ter­ry Ron­don, Coun­cil­lor for To­co/Fish­ing Pond; Dwayne Fran­cois, Coun­cil­lor for San­gre Grande West; Kee­gan Slinger of the SIDC; Kendall Zoe, Pres­i­dent of the Matelot Fish­er­man's As­so­ci­a­tion and Ken Mor­ris, Pres­i­dent of the North East Coast Mul­ti-pur­pose Co­op­er­a­tive.

The ob­jec­tive was to meet with the stake­hold­ers in the two com­mu­ni­ties to ini­ti­ate col­lab­o­ra­tion as well get first-hand the needs of the fish­er­men to be­gin work­ing to­geth­er. To­co and Matelot are two of five com­mu­ni­ties in­volved in Project Five Ze­ro (Project 50), an ini­tia­tive aimed at en­hanc­ing phys­i­cal and eco­nom­ic con­di­tions in ar­eas along the North Coast of Trinidad. The five re­gions are To­co, Matelot, Blan­chisseuse, Las Cuevas and Mara­cas.

The tim­ing of the vis­it was apt be­cause of re­cent de­struc­tion to fa­cil­i­ties in Matelot by nat­ur­al forces and dam­age by a ve­hi­cle to the fish­ing fa­cil­i­ties in To­co. Tewarie and the oth­er of­fi­cials had planned the vis­it way in ad­vance of these chal­lenges. The dis­cus­sion were en­gag­ing and fo­cused on hear­ing first-hand the needs of the fish­er folk from these com­mu­ni­ties to de­vel­op a col­lab­o­ra­tive re­la­tion­ship geared to­wards in­ter­ven­tions that will al­le­vi­ate much of their strife.

Project 5 Ze­ro is close­ly linked to the de­vel­op­ment of ge­o­graph­ic spaces through the growth poles and the eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion thrust via the en­hance­ment of T&T's food sus­tain­abil­i­ty.The fish­ing in­dus­try and eco-tourism are be­ing con­sid­ered in ad­dress­ing the de­vel­op­ment of the North Coast growth pole. Sim­i­lar vis­its are be­ing or­gan­ised for Blan­chisseuse, Las Cuevas and Mara­cas.