By Zadie Neufville
OLD PERA, Jamaica, Oct 1 2001 (IPS)

For the first time in his life, Carlton Watson says, he has a chance to “make a man” of himself.

Watson and two friends – Junior and Michael Brown – are to share one of five new motor-powered boats provided as part of an effort to revive the fishing economy of this hardscrabble community. In all, 15 fishermen will ply the local waters, returning each day to a newly equipped fishing beach – akin to a wharf – and what they hope will be a sustainable means of earning a living.

For the men of this rural district on the eastern tip of Jamaica, it is the fresh start they say they have long wanted.

In 12 years of fishing, Watson says, he never managed to secure a permanent position on any of the more than 100 tiny fishing boats in Old Pera and neighbouring New Pera. All too often, he would have to wait until after boat owners had sold their catch and paid off their crews, to scavenge among the leftovers for fish worth selling or eating.

To make ends meet, “I do some carpentry and masonry when I can get the jobs,” Watson adds.

The story is familiar all over this island nation: Families struggling to make ends meet but starved of the means to do so, children missing school because there is just not enough money.

But Old and New Pera have been especially hard hit. Jobs have been scarce since the old banana wharf closed nearly 30 years ago and the few days’ work people here used to get on the sugar and banana estates a few kilometres away have been wiped out by industry cutbacks.

The communities lie in an arid region that supports very little but the acacia trees that provide fodder for goats and wood for burning charcoal, activities that provide some income for a few. The only asset is a beautiful bay and an overcrowded fishing beach about eight kilometres down the coast.

Old Pera is one of 41 fishing sites that will be developed or refurbished by Food for the Poor (FFP), a Jamaican charity set up by businessman Ferdinand Mahfood to provide relief for the poorest peoples of the region.

FFP operates in 14 countries across the region- Barbados, Belize, Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Montserrat, Nicaragua, Panama, Suriname and the Dominican Republic – and for fund-raising purposes is headquartered in the U.S. state of Florida.

The effort is not without its detractors. Jamaica has some 184 registered fishing beaches and the idea of another one has irked local environmentalists, says Junior Agriculture Minister Fenton Ferguson.

“They were concerned that we were establishing a new fishing beach when there were signs that the waters where showing signs of being over fished,” he explains.

In the case of the Old Pera site, the critics relented only when they learnt that several fishermen – unbeknownst to them and authorities – had been using the bay to dock their boats anyway because of its proximity to home, fisherman Carlton Flash says.

Because the project seeks not only to upgrade the most run-down of the island’s fishing beaches but also to establish an additional six, however, the Caribbean Coastal Area Management Foundation’s (CCAMF) Ingrid Parchment says adding new beaches will put more stress on already depleted resources.

“Fishermen are catching smaller and fewer fish and many are forced to go farther because there is just not enough to support the growing population of fishermen,” she says.

CCAMF says it is working with fishermen from eight south coast fishing beaches to develop alternatives to fishing in an effort to improve their lives.

The FFP project comes at a time when the cash-strapped government has chopped the national fisheries budget by two-thirds. It is being funded with 200,000 dollars in donations collected by Fish 104, a Christian radio station based in the U.S. city of Atlanta.

Most fishing beaches no longer have basic infrastructure or facilities, partly because of the pressure placed on the system by the large number of illegal fishermen, Fisheries Officer Tricia Campbell says.

The Jamaica Fisherman Cooperative estimates that there are about 40,000 fishermen, almost twice the official government estimate of between 20,000 and 25,000.

“That is our estimate but we believe there could be many more,” Campbell acknowledges. She adds that tackle sheds and fisheries offices at some sites have fallen into disrepair because some fisherfolk families have taken to living in them because of a housing shortage.

Ferguson takes some of the blame for the run-down beaches. Government, he says, has neglected the fishing industry because it has no money. According to Parchment, however, ownership also is a problem.

Fishing beaches are the responsibility of the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), the organisation that oversees environmental legislation and enforcement. NEPA does not own them, however, and this makes it doubly hard to upgrade and maintain them, she says.

“There are no lease arrangements, no one to collect usage fees or assume responsibility for electricity or water if they are to be installed,” Parchment explains.

Food for the Poor’s chief executive, Bradley Finzi-Smith, is making infrastructure a priority on the beaches that his organisation plans to develop and refurbish.

“We have included a fully equipped tackle shed and storage facility for fish and equipment, electricity and water. We are also putting in grills and facilities to encourage other economic activities,” he says.

The project has been handed to the local church to administer in accordance with the fishing act.

“We want to ensure that the boats do not engage in illegal activities and if it does there is someone who is responsible,” says Campbell.

Jamaican fishermen are said to be particularly active in trafficking guns and drugs, hence the concern that the project not be abused.

In all, the FFP programme envisions providing more than 120 new boats nationwide. Participants in the project must undertake to train apprentices, give 10 per cent of the earnings each month to a maintenance and development fund, and adopt a member of their community.

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