Fisheries ministers meeting in Barbados

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, May 31, CMC – Caribbean fisheries ministers are meeting in Barbados on Friday to discuss the work of the Belize-based Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM).
“This is a very important meeting in terms of forging a new strategic direction for the fisheries sector,” said CRFM Executive Director, Milton Haughton.
He said the seventh meeting of the CRFM Ministerial Council will consider a number of coordinated initiatives aimed at progressively improving “the standard of living of our fisherfolk, particularly those in the small-scale fisheries sector (as well as) the region’s food security, by providing consumers in the region with adequate supplies of safe and affordably priced fish and seafood”.
The one-day meeting will also discuss the frameworks to protect and conserve the fish stocks and associated ecosystems from overexploitation and degradation due to pollution and other human activities.
The meeting, which will be attended by delegates from  The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, will also receive an update on the progress of work activities being undertaken by the CRFM Secretariat.
A CRFM statement said that the meeting “will also approve a number of regional policy and strategic documents aimed at strengthening governance arrangements, conservation and sustainable development of the fisheries and aquaculture sector in the region”.
The Council is expected to endorse the new CRFM Strategic Plan (2013–2021); the Regional Strategy, Action Plan and Proposal for Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management in Fisheries as well as the Regional Manual and Strategy to Control the Lionfish Invasion.
It will also be asked to support the efforts of the Caribbean Network of Fisherfolk Organizations (CNFO), as it strives for greater participation in the decision-making process, the statement added.