Investigations into the report of declining fish stocks continued at the Gulf of Paria.

Fishermen from Claxton Bay to King’s Wharf in San Fernando will tell you that pollution caused by the industrialisation of the Gulf of Paria is a major concern for them.

A typical day at the fishing depot at Claxton Bay begins at around 7 a.m. when the boats return with their catch after spending the night out at sea.

There the Express met with president of the Claxton Bay Fishing Association, Kishore Boodram. Boodram, a fisherman for more than 40 years, owns several boats, one of which has just come to shore.

But he is not ready to off-load the catch as yet.

He is anxious to get the interview going, because for the past two years, Boodram has been the voice of the Claxton Bay fishermen protesting Government’s proposal to construct a port which will facilitate the planned Essar Steel Mill.

The village of Claxton Bay is home to the Trinidad Cement Ltd factory. The community is also surrounded by industrialisation as it lies between the Point Lisas and Pointe-a-Pierre industrial estates.

Boodram notes that residents including fishermen constantly face several types of environmental hazards.

’It have a lot of plants (industrial) around the area, dust pollution, steel mill dust pollution, ammonia, gases, and we even have a lot of oil spilling.’

Boodram believes if Government went ahead with its plans to construct the port it would be detrimental to the marine environment.

’They don’t know about the real issues on the Gulf. Especially how much seabeds we have. Grass seabeds. This is the mullet hatchery area. We export this mullet fish to Venezuela, to America, Canada and many other small islands. Also, we supply the shoreline of Trinidad and Tobago for catching shark and groupers and red fish.’

His colleague, Baldeo Sooknanan, a third-generation fisherman, agrees.

’We have all types, you name it. We have carite, salmon, cro cro. We have red fish, herring, cutlass fish. We have plateau. Is a spawning ground, the sea grass, the seabed we call it. The eggs they germinate, when the fish come and spawn the eggs stick up on it.’

Sooknanan believes that fishermen in the area were not against development and even suggested that Government relocate the port to Point Lisas or Pointe-a-Pierre.

’Let they get it straight, we not against development for the country just leave our fishing port alone.’

After the interview, Boodram tells his crew to off-load the catch. And although the two plastic coolers were full, he describes the catch as small (just over 100 pounds). It was mostly red fish, mullet, and a fish he called bouchet. And he told me the reason why there were no kingfish or carite.

’These days we not holding kingfish and carite because it have plenty siltation in the water and it muddy. King and carite like clean clear water.’

At King’s Wharf, San Fernando, Salim Gool, chairman of the San Fernando Fishing Co-operative expresses similar sentiments as Boodram, blaming the decline in fish stocks on industrial pollution.

’They technically killing the industry. That is why we not having fish. For the past five to six years ago, since all these things begin to happen, this is getting effect from that now.’

Gool says, in 2007, fishermen at the wharf had to tolerate the seismic surveys carried out by Petro Canada in the Gulf of Paria.

Nowadays, fishermen on the wharf are at odds with the Government, since being displaced by the water taxi service. Prior to this, with the old fishing depot, located to the northern end of King’s Wharf, in a dilapidated condition, Government constructed a new depot to the southern end.

Fishermen were given storage rooms, washrooms and there were even plans to relocate the fish market. But with the arrival of the water taxi service those plans were shelved, as the water taxi docking bay lies smack in-between the facilities.

Gool calls the water taxi an inconvenience to the fishermen.

Another fisherman, Stephen Marlon Taylor, describes it this way.

’When they come and watch here they say they going to develop down there for us. Now they take it back. The gate on that side we can’t even open the gate. The security putting out people telling them they can’t pass.’

The fishermen are also taking issue with a recent statement by Minister of Agriculture Arnold Piggott. At a recent post-Cabinet media briefing, Piggott advised the fishermen ’to go somewhere else and fish’.

Gool, a fisherman for more than 25 years, says this is unrealistic.

’Does he mean that we must leave the Gulf and go to the north or go to the east? This will have a very great overhead cost on fishermen, the boat owners and the people in the community. I invest my life here. I am a boat owner here 27 years. I never went to school, I do fishing here from a little boy. What the prime minister want you to go and do now?’

A 2005 report by the Institute of Marine Affairs notes that the marine fisheries sector contributed $63 million to the Gross Domestic Product. This represented ten per cent of the total GDP for agriculture, forestry and fishing and 0.09 per cent of the national GDP.

Average annual fish landings (2002 - 2006) were estimated at 15,852 metric tonnes, valued at $150 million. Employment in the sector was estimated at 7,085 people in 2003.