The danger of overfishing in Guyana waters

THE Environmental Community Health Organisation (ECHO), is paying careful attention to the media reports that the Guyanese authorities are contemplating granting licences to Chinese fishing vessels to operate in Guyana’s waters.

We hope that, that report was inaccurate.
The mood and spirit of nations all over the world, is to scale back on the use of natural resources. Globally, there is an urgency to put strict regulations in place to protect biodiversity and the culture of local communities. In the face of unprecedented environmental events impacting our environment we, in Guyana, must do more to preserve the health of our ecology and protect local communities.
This is a very serious issue, particularly in circumstances where we continue to hurt the environment by polluting rivers and other water sources through mining activities. Recall the cyanide river disaster in 1995 and the pollution of the Arau River in Region 7 (Cuyuni/Mazaruni) in 2008. The continually and continuously negative environmental mining practices are impacting on marine life and other biodiversity.
Also, there is the tragedy of commons – members in a group using common resources for their own gain and with no regard for others. This can lead to over-exploitation of common resources. ECHO has a real concern that this contemplated move by the authorities can lead to overfishing.
Overfishing occurs when fishes are being caught faster than they can reproduce and replace themselves.
Overfishing can affect biological diversity. Biodiversity is the diversity of living things, and can be thought of as occurring on three levels: genetic, species, and ecosystem. Genetic diversity is the genetic variability that occurs among members of the same species. Species diversity is the variety of species found in a community or ecosystem. And ecological diversity is the variety of types of biological communities.
An additional means of categorising biological diversity is functional diversity; the variety of biological processes characteristic of a particular ecosystem. These units of diversity are inter-related. In the face of environmental change, the loss of genetic diversity weakens a population’s ability to adapt; the loss of species diversity weakens a community’s ability to adapt; the loss of functional diversity weakens an ecosystem’s ability to adapt; and the loss of ecological diversity weakens the whole biosphere’s ability to adapt.
Because biological and physical processes are interactive, losses of biological diversity may also precipitate further environmental change. This progressively destructive routine results in impoverished biological systems, which are susceptible to collapse when faced with further environmental changes.
Therefore, we in ECHO believe that it would not be in the best interest of our natural environment to grant licences to Chinese fishing vessels to operate in Guyana’s waters.

ROYSTON KING
Executive Director, ECHO

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