RYAN BA­CHOO

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Prime Min­is­ter of Bar­ba­dos Mia Mot­t­ley have agreed that fish­eries of­fi­cials from both coun­tries will meet and analyse whether there has been over­fish­ing of fly­ing fish in To­ba­go wa­ters.

This was re­vealed by Prime Min­is­ter Mot­t­ley in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day as the Re­gion­al Sym­po­sium: Vi­o­lence as a Pub­lic Health Is­sue - The Crime Chal­lenge con­clud­ed at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain.

“There have been no ten­sions what­so­ev­er. I find it amaz­ing. I be­lieve that one per­son has spo­ken and we have not­ed the al­le­ga­tions of over-ex­ploita­tion. The on­ly way to re­solve that is not by me speak­ing or Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley speak­ing but our two fish­eries di­vi­sions meet­ing and re­view­ing the facts, and that’s what’s go­ing to hap­pen,” she said.

The bi­lat­er­al talks fol­low com­plaints by To­bag­on­ian fish­er­men that Bar­ba­di­an fish­er­men are over­fish­ing in T&T’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters and it is af­fect­ing them eco­nom­i­cal­ly. All To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion (AT­FA) pres­i­dent Cur­tis Dou­glas sent a let­ter to Dr Row­ley last Wednes­day and is hop­ing for a re­sponse from him by to­day.

Mot­t­ley played down the is­sue say­ing both heads of gov­ern­ment held talks at the crime sym­po­sium and came to an am­i­ca­ble agree­ment on the way for­ward.

“The two Prime Min­is­ters have agreed that their fish­eries will meet, will ex­am­ine the ev­i­dence, will look and see whether there is any­thing in terms of sci­ence-based. The is­sue is the preser­va­tion of the stock. Is there re­al­ly over­fish­ing or not? I can’t tell you there is. The fish­eries de­part­ments will meet, they’ll re­view the sci­ence, they’ll re­view the ev­i­dence and ad­vise us,” she said

Mot­t­ley added: “Let me put to rest, if they re­al­ly want­ed to do busi­ness, what are we? We are the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty. We’ve signed the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas. What does that give us? The right of es­tab­lish­ment. We have the right to go and es­tab­lish a busi­ness in any Caribbean coun­try as a Caribbean cit­i­zen. The is­sue can­not be in to­day’s world the right of any Caribbean cit­i­zen to pur­sue a busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

Mot­t­ley said both gov­ern­ments share the con­cern and are will­ing to work on a so­lu­tion.

“I wouldn’t call it ten­sion in any man­ner, form or fash­ion. There’s a con­cern and we are go­ing to meet the con­cern," she said.

"Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley and I have agreed that our two fish­eries de­part­ments will work, take the ev­i­dence, both of us are in­ter­est­ed in en­sur­ing that there is no over-fish­ing and there is main­te­nance of the stock and we’ll deal with that.”

The fly­ing fish is part of the na­tion­al dish of Bar­ba­dos. Its sym­bol can be found on coins, and in art­work and it is part of the of­fi­cial lo­go of the Bar­ba­dos Tourism Au­thor­i­ty.

The T&T-Bar­ba­dos fly­ing fish re­la­tion­ship dates back to the 1960s when Bar­ba­di­an fish­er­men taught To­bag­o­ni­ans how to drift and lurk to catch the fish. In the 1980s, the first agree­ment be­tween the two coun­tries was signed.

No time­line was giv­en by Mot­t­ley on when the fish­eries de­part­ments will pro­vide feed­back to the gov­ern­ments of Bar­ba­dos and T&T.