Members of a small nation with the hearts of a lion are standing up to big oil in order to protect fish, and their fishing way of life.
“We don’t just want to hear about meagre compensation for our financial hardships. We want to fish, living the way we’ve lived for thousands of years. This is our legacy, our right and what we know best. It seems to be a case of feeding the rich and depriving the less privileged. We are scattered all over Trinidad and Tobago which makes it easy to divide, fool and conquer us to get us out of their way as they have done just last week with our fellow fishers on the south coast, who accepted the untruths and inadequate packages dangled at them, as we once did, because of their financial distress and ignorance, just as ours, distress which is counted on to weaken our resolve and fool you, the public.” Diane Christian-Simmons.
Fed up with trying to work through government channels, the fishing community of Trinidad Tobago has held a series of peaceful pickets to protect the fish that have fed their nation for thousands of years – fish that are known to be harmed by oil companies in the seemingly unquenchable offshore quest for oil and gas.
The latest peaceful picket resulted in the dramatic arrest of Gary Aboud, head of Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS), environmentalist Cathal Healy-Singh and La Brea fisherman, Wayne Henry.
Gary Aboud, head of Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (left), Diane Christian-Simmons, president of the Cocorite fishing association (center), and environmentalist Cathal Healy-Singh (right). This statement accompanied the press conference.
The situation in Trinidad Tobago is particularly complex because that well-educated nation enjoys a good standard of living in many sectors as a result of the extensive oil reserves that have built the economy, and which created a government that is closely tied to the industry.
In a press release, Fishermen and Friends of the Sea note that the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) has never required Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) before seismic surveys for oil and gas are undertaken. They understand that oil exploration will undoubtedly occur there, but they are requesting something very significant: They just want basic science to figure out the degree of impact on fisheries, and they want the fish stock restored.
“Bombing” is a colloquial term for the seismic surveys, the fishermen (colloquially referred to as ‘fisherfolk’) understand the science of seismic surveys. Photo courtesy of Christian-Simmons.
The fishing community demands reasonable compensation from the oil industry for loss of income. The next oil survey will keep them from the area for eight months, and studies show that the fish may disappear from the region due to the noise.
Arrested in last week’s protest, environmental engineer Cathal Healy-Singh has documented the situation there in detail, and provided the information to the government.
There is a plethora of scientific data worldwide which concludes that Seismic Surveys (SS) are damaging to not only marine mammals but also to fish and other marine organisms. In 2011, Fishermen and Friends of the Sea, presented to the EMA (and all relevant government agencies and fishing groups) a substantial technical document which compiles the results of scores and scores of research papers from scientific groups around the world which clearly and unequivocally recognizes the damage that SS does. “During the last 20 years there has been growing concern with respect to the impacts of offshore SS activities on marine life”
From the press release:
Since they [EMA] failed to require EIAs in the past, there is no documented evidence of where, how much and what types of fish are being caught, and what the impacts of previous specific Seismic Surveys have been on national fisheries and particularly commercial fisheries, since only the landing sites and gross quantities caught are intermittently documented by the Fisheries Division (according to fishermen).
As a result, the EMA is not in a position now, nor will they be after the Guidelines are written, to “ensure that offshore activities are conducted in a regulated manner”. Hence they would have failed to “uphold principles of sustainable development”
Everyone is now fully aware of the grave concerns of fishermen forced, precisely because of a lack of consultations, to have to come into the full public gaze and demonstrate peacefully at the POS waterfront. They are reporting up to 70% drop in catch; lasting months after the Seismic Surveys are completed.
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