The Caribbean region's ability to cash in on a potentially lucrative, international export trade in fish and seafood is being held back by huge gaps in measures to protect food safety and animal health, experts say.
But the experts, who are investigating food handling policies in CARIFORUM countries, are set to propose a new regime for sanitary and phytosanitary – SPS – measures in CARIFORUM states.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, 25 August 2015, (CRFM) – Industry figures and government officials from across the Caribbean fishing industry Tuesday wrapped up two days of talks here acknowledging they were at the very early stages of introducing a new regime for safe seafood for local and international consumption.
The two-day meeting is part of a European Union-funded project to help CARIFORUM countries introduce laws, regulations and a governance system to guarantee safe seafood for export to EU markets and beyond.
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Jul 6 2015 (IPS) - Threats from climate change, declining reefs, overfishing and possible loss of several commercial species are driving the rollout of new policy measures to keep Caribbean fisheries sustainable.
Regional groups and the U.S.-based NGO Wild Earth Guardians have petitioned for the listing of some of the Caribbean’s most economically valuable marine species as vulnerable, endangered or threatened with extinction.
Social protection exists when governments develop policies and programmes to address economic, environmental and social vulnerabilities to food insecurity and poverty. The Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy (CCCFP) is one such policy which Caribbean Countries believe can help to enhance the income, status and capacities of fisherfolk; thus, enabling them to sustainably provide for themselves and their family members.
In a milestone development for the region, Fisheries Ministers recently endorsed a new Declaration on Spiny Lobster—a highly traded marine species in the Caribbean—at the 9th Meeting of the Ministerial Council of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), which concluded on Friday, 15 May 2015 in Grenada.
ST GEORGE’S, Grenada (CRFM) — Fisheries ministers from member states of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) are expected to sign off on the declaration on spiny lobster by way of a resolution, when they convene the ninth meeting of the ministerial council of the CRFM on Friday in St George’s, Grenada.
BELIZE CITY, Apr 9 2015 (IPS) - A five-year project launched here in Belize City in March seeks to cement a shift in view of climate change and its impact on Belize’s national development.
A senior Grenada Government official has called for the strengthening of cooperation and unity in the Caribbean Region to develop, manage and utilise marine resources in a sustainable manner.
At the opening of the 13th Meeting of the Caribbean Fisheries Forum in St. George’s, Grenada on 1 April, Senator Simon Steele, Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment of Grenada made the recommendations against the background of the varied challenges the Region was facing in the fisheries sector.
Heads of national fisheries authorities from the seventeen (17) Member States of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), as well as observers and partner agencies, on Monday began participating in the 13th Meeting of the Caribbean Fisheries Forum in Grenada. The two-day meeting is being held at the Flamboyant Hotel in St. George’s.
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Wednesday March 18, 2015, IPS - Caribbean nations have begun work on a plan to ‘climate smart’ the region’s fisheries as part of overall efforts to secure food supplies.
The concept is in keeping with plans by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) to improve the “integration of agriculture and climate readiness” as the region prepares to deal with the impacts of climate change and the increasing demand for food.