Sport fishing in some areas may soon be a thing of the past as the authorities look to prevent overfishing in the inland waterways, according to Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud.
Addressing participants at a Fisherfolk Convention on Tuesday at the Guyana International Conference Centre, Persaud said people need to understand that some of the communities depend on fishing for their livelihood.
“We have people drive in from Georgetown and elsewhere, spend four days fishing then out,” he said. According to Persaud, they know who some of these individuals are and will be putting in place the necessary policy to go after them. He added that he had already identified the relevant provision under the Forestry Act that would enable the authorities to pursue offenders.
Restrictions are already in place on fishing in the water conservancies and protected areas and the minister said that they were looking at some other areas.
“We’re very much interested in Rockstone because fishing and sport fishing is an important area for their economic development.”
Rockstone in Region 10 hosts the annual Rockstone Fish Festival under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and was introduced in 2006 to promote the community as a tourist destination with the profits invested into community development.
Persaud said his ministry would be supporting the festival in order to make it sustainable and avoid overfishing.
Also at Tuesday’s event was the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) Representative in Guyana Dr. Lystra Fletcher-Paul who said that the FAO is helping Guyana develop an inland fishery policy and strategic plan in keeping with a request from the government. She added that the Fisheries and Aquaculture Officer from the FAO regional office in Chile visited Guyana last week and held discussions with a number of stakeholders. “We will be providing assistance not only to develop the policy and plan but also to build capacity and to improve the systems for data collection for monitoring inland fisheries,” Dr. Fletcher-Paul stated.
Tuesday’s event was in observance of Fisherman’s Day.
