Hope for the industry also lies further out
Speak of sustainability and potential for growth of Guyana’s fishing and the first word that presents itself is “aquaculture” – an activity that is carried out either very close to the shore or completely inland. Yet within Guyana’s vast exclusive economic zone (EEZ) – which extends some 200 nautical miles from the coastline and covers an estimated area of 138,240 square kilometers – there are large untapped marine resources, outside of the much lauded and hoped for petroleum.

Guyana EEZ is divided into four zones of fishery activity. At present, the furthest out ships go to harvest is Zone 3, or the Prawns Area, which is between 50-80 km from the shoreline with a depth of between 25 and 50 metres. But beyond that, beginning at 100 km from shore and going some 100 metres deep, lies the bounty – a largely unexploited area of dark blue sea teeming with large pelagic fish (like sharks) and school fish, particularly tuna and mackerel.

This is the staging ground for what Minister of Agriculture Mr. Robert Persaud refers to as “The Blue Revolution” – one of two areas, the other of course being aquaculture, in which the Minister sees potential for growth and diversification within the local fishing industry.

By all indications it is going to be costly revolution. According to a June, 2004 USAID funded Technical Report, prepared by Paul Geer, exploitation of this area is going to require “relatively large capital investment” which would go to financing the large capacity ocean vessels, catching fleets and factory ships that are necessary in harvesting this resource. A substantial sum would also have to be invested in upgrading Guyana’s involvement in regional resource management bodies, like the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in which the country currently only has cooperating party status.

In April, Mr. Persaud told the Review, the Ministry of Agriculture will be hosting a national consultation on exploiting Guyana’s deep sea treasure.

“Together we will try to muster the resources,” the Minister said, “and the other wherewithal so we can then move very aggressively and quickly into tapping those resources. There has been an interest by our local fishing community as well as external [entities] and we want to bring those interests to a reality.”

One of the key topics that is sure to be discussed at that consultation is the present energy crisis, which is currently hitting even the existing sectors in the industry hard (see story on page 6) as well as the issue of policing such an extensive area. Nonetheless, the revolution seems to be an historical inevitability – as the world’s fish resources continue to dwindle, the occasional foreign fishing vessel that is spotted illegally harvesting in Zone 4 of our EEZ will show up increasingly often. And that is a situation we can ill afford.