THE country’s fishing communities, already amongst the poorest of the poor, are now being pushed to the point of starvation by the state’s apparent inability to control overfishing and the use of prohibited nets. Deep-sea trawling by foreign and local boats has caused the fish catch available to local fishermen to drop by some 70 per cent. This spells disaster for hundreds of coastal communities for which fishing is not just the primary source of livelihood but also the dietary mainstay. Furthermore, if unchecked, overfishing could lead to the extinction of valuable species of local fish.
