THE CARIBBEAi; AREA 



form of the fixing and enforcing of minimum price limits to the producer, encouraging 

 purchase of fish by public institutions, popularizing the consunption of fish by publicity, 

 encouraging cooperatives, setting reasonable price limits on supplies and materials, giving 

 information on fishing and fish-handling techniques, loaning funds, and by other means. 

 Units of industry can be easily disturbed in many ways by war conditions. It may reason- 

 ably be considered expedient for governmental action to supply temporary relief from con- 

 ditions that otherwise would seriously handicap or ruin an industry if the cost is not out 

 of proporticxi to the good accon^lished. 



Long-range fishery activities ; — ^Throughout the past, the fishery industries of the 

 Caribbean have been almost entirely neglected by the local governments. While other 

 industries have received encouragement and active assistance through governmental invest- 

 igations and research, loans, subsidies, tariff protection, inspection and grading of pro- 

 ducts, publicity, and demonstrations, the fishery industries have functioned almost with- 

 out notice. Where governmental aid has been provided, it often has been supplied with the 

 advice of unqualified "experts" or promoters. There has been an almost complete lack of 

 fishery administrators in the services of the governments and some of the countries have 

 functioned with a complete lack of policy of management of their fishery resources. 



With the help of qua].ified fishery appraisers, each co\mtry, colony, or possession 

 in the Caribbean should formulate and adopt an intelligent government policy of use of 

 the fishery resources and initiate a fishery management program suited to the conditions 

 existing in each jurisdiction. 



It does not follow that each country should set up a complex system of management. 

 The extent to y4iich the processes of fishery prcmiotion and management should be utilized 

 in the administration of the fisheries in each Caribbean country is a matter that should 

 be decided logically through scrutiny of the resources and their uses by perscxis fully 

 acquainted with fishery processes and techniques. In cases where the industries obviously 

 cannot become iiuportant, a minimum of activity should suffice. In all countries a system 

 proportionate in size and cost to the needs for and possibilities in the system will be 

 well worth while. 



Fishery resources are valuable assets that must be used under governmental control 

 if they are to be protected from over-exploitation or wasteful lack of use, TlThile private 

 enterprise usually takes advantage of opportunities for profit in use of the resources, it 

 does not itself provide checks and balamces to prevent excessive use of the most valviable 

 resoxirces nor does it care to venture into fields of speculative profits in the less pro- 

 mising resources. ISicontrolled operation of private enterprise in the fishery industries 

 violates the public interest in that it encourages depleti<Hi of the most profitable fish 

 supplies and neglects the least profitable. The operations of private enterprise should 

 be restricted to prevent excessive use of certain resources and they should be encourag- 

 ed and assisted to increase the use of others. Governments should organize fishery 

 development and management agencies qualified and empowered to perform these functions 

 to the extent made necesssiry by local circumstances. 



It is not denied that there are many activities or studies that may be undertaken by 

 persons relatively unskilled or uninformed in fishery development and management that will 

 remedy certain uneconomic conditions of use or non-use. Government agencies should real- 

 ize, however, that funds can be easily wasted and the well-being of the industries and the 

 resources needlessly jeopardized through the placing of confidence in the hands of un- 

 qualified persons or persons who are qualified only in certain phases of the field. The 

 field of fishery science is a broad one and one in which there are many specialized pro- 

 fessions, liany so-called "fishery experts" may be excellent technicians in aie branch of 

 fishery science and in con^lete ignorance of other branches. The most accurate appraisal 

 of needs for fishery woric can be supplied by persons fully acquainted with the biological 

 and technological fishery sciences as well as techniques of commercial fishing, and *o 

 possess a bjilanced perspective on the relative economic iitqiortance of these functions in 

 fishery development and raanagenent. 



Throughout the Caribbean area, development of fishery industries is affected by the 

 same basic factors. Since conditicais are surprisingly homogenous, and since fish are not 



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