by ALBERT BRANDFORD

BARBADOS' Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kerrie Symmonds yesterday described the paucity of fishing and fisheries-related technical cooperation agreements in the region as "shameful".

His comments came a day after an international disputes court urged Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago to go back to the negotiating table to work out a fishing agreement that has eluded them since July 2000.

"Surely, the sea which defines us and unifies us should also be the central resource around which we build institutional capacity for a common industry, common policy formulation and management systems . . . ," Symmonds told a CSME Business Forum at the Sherbourne Conference Centre, Two-Mile Hill, St Michael.

Standing in for Prime Minister Owen Arthur, Symmonds felt such unity would arise out of a common interest in resource monitoring, harvesting and post-harvesting technologies shared across borders by practitioners of a common industry.

"The time is now ripe for an educated and proud region to embrace, in a responsible way, the opportunities to conclude a regional agreement which will speak to the management and conservation of fish stocks, the surveillance and protection of our exclusive economic zones and the safeguarding of our marine environment from pollutants.

"In this regard, there is a role to be played by both the public and private sectors, especially the regional fisherfolk associations."

At the 14th Inter-Sessional Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government in Port-of- Spain in February 2003, Barbados tabled a draft proposal for the development of a regional fisheries policy, that included ten specific recommendations topped by the creation of a single maritime authority.

Symmonds suggested that the decision by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration transcended "victories and losses" but represented "yet another instance of a foreign tribunal telling us to wise up and put our house in order".

He pointed out that the mandate given to Trinidad and Tobago to conclude
an access agreement with Barbados reflected "almost identically" the letter and spirit of Article 60 of the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.

"In this regard," he added, "they told Trinidad and Tobago nothing they did not already know.

"A critical examination of the Caribbean Sea in this part of the region tells a sorry tale. There are very few maritime boundaries delimitation negotiations taking place between CARICOM states, while former colonisers retaining Caribbean interests, like the French, are anxious to demarcate such maritime space.

"Equally, there is nothing to gain but shame at the fact that there are so few fishing and fisheries-related technical cooperation agreements in this region."

albertbrandford@nationnews.com