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The danger of overfishing in our waters

Sep 27, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The Environment Community Health Organization (ECHO) is concerned about an article which appeared in the Kaieteur News of September 26, 2014, captioned: “Chinese operators in talks with Agri Ministry over fishing opportunities”.
Clearly the mood and spirit of nations all over the world is to scale back on the use of natural resources. Globally, there is an urgency to put strict regulations in place to protect biodiversity and the cultures of local communities. In the face of unprecedented environmental events impacting our environment we, in Guyana, must do more to preserve the health of our ecology and protect local communities.
This is a very serious issue, particularly in circumstances where we engage in activities that continue to hurt the environment by polluting rivers and other water sources through mining activities. Recall the cyanide river disaster in 1995 and the pollution of the Arau River in Region 7 (Cuyuni/Mazaruni) in 2008. The continuous negative environmental mining practices are impacting on marine life and other bio-diversities.
Again, there is the tragedy of commons – members in a group using common resources for their own gain and with no regard for others. This can lead to over-exploitation of common resources.
ECHO has a real concern that this contemplated move by the authorities can lead to overfishing.
Overfishing occurs when fishes are being caught faster than they can reproduce and replace themselves.
Overfishing can affect biological diversity. Biodiversity is the diversity of living things, and can be thought of as occurring on three levels: genetic, species, and ecosystem. Genetic diversity is the genetic variability that occurs among members of the same species. Species diversity is the variety of species found in a community or ecosystem. And ecological diversity is the variety of types of biological communities.
An additional means of categorising biological diversity is functional diversity; the variety of biological processes characteristic of a particular ecosystem. These units of diversity are inter-related. In the face of environmental change, the loss of genetic diversity weakens a population’s ability to adapt; the loss of species diversity weakens a community’s ability to adapt; the loss of functional diversity weakens an ecosystem’s ability to adapt; and the loss of ecological diversity weakens the whole biosphere’s ability to adapt.
Because biological and physical processes are interactive, losses of biological diversity may also precipitate further environmental change. This progressively destructive routine results in impoverished biological systems, which are susceptible to collapse when faced with further environmental changes.
Therefore, we, in ECHO, hope that any proposal to add others to this industry will be given really careful attention and strict regulations would be put in place to protect our fishing industry and our natural assets.  We are also asking the competent authority to begin an audit of the various species of fishes; we have in Guyana and their status as it relates to extinction.
Royston King
Executive Director, ECHO

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