The Ministry of Works and Engineering application for a fish processing and storage centre has been approved at Southside in St. David’s. The planning officials agreed to a shoreside processing facility but a question mark remains over whether this will include longlining.
As per the government official the facility will kick-start the commercial fishing industry in Bermuda, with marketing and export support for “large pelagics”. This new facility is located near L. F. Wade International Airport, it will offer ice, fuel, bait, fishing gear and supplies, and freezer facilities, serving as a staging post for high seas vessels heading into Bermuda’s 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), an area where it has sovereign rights of natural resources.
In a memo to Planning director Trevor Leach on March 11, director of Conservation Services Jack Ward said his department wouldn’t challenge the facility as long as it assisted the “existing local fishing industry”. He appealed the Government to undertake “extreme caution” in considering the introduction of longline fishing.
Ward opined that the Department of Conservation Services has no conservation or environmental issue with the establishment of a support facility for the existing local fishing industry. He further said that the ‘Fisheries Building’ structure as designed and located for development at this site will in some respects aid in revitalising the area through the clean-up of existing stored scrap metals and litter and other debris accumulated over time.
A memo to Planning from Environmental Protection director Fred Ming stated: “The MRB (Marine Resources Board) had no objections to this application.” Dr Ming said that the facility will provide important economic relief/assistance to the established inshore fishery.
