Here is a precis of my remarks, revised in the light of the lively discussion that followed.
Most of humanity’s problems arise because the size of our population outruns the food supply. Similarly technology, particularly weapons technology, outruns the cultural conventions that might control it. These problems are as old and real as the story of the Garden of Eden.
To weather an increasing storm in which the forces remain the same and the change is only in scale, we need to be sure that we adhere to trusted principles. Time to make the necessary adjustments is running short as the world population races towards the forecast nine billion in 2050.
In The Bahamas we must make sure that we keep a plentiful supply of fish in the sea. If we do not, the poor will not be able to fend for themselves and we will lose the tourist industry.
Many Bahamians aspire to the rich and harmonious culture of making a living from the sea. Last June, at COB’s forum 2003, four Family Islanders, Glenn Bannister from Inagua, Eris Moncur from Cat Island, Peter Douglas from Andros and Diane Claridge from Abaco described this ideal. Happy is the Bahamian, they said, who knows that there are plenty of fish in reach for him to catch today and if he so wishes, tomorrow. He depends on no Government hand out; he is out on the sea, alone with the fish, the sea, the wind and his God. That this is a vision realized for the majority only in their recreation or in dreams does not make it any less potent as a guide to our behaviour. It touches the soul of the nation.
Hence the desired impact of BREEF’s programmes on our culture is to ensure that there will always be plenty of fish in the sea, for BAHAMIANS. If the fish disappear, the Family Islanders will be forced to come to Nassau looking for work or a hand out. Our culture will become the cutthroat competition of the urban jungle.
The impact we would wish to have is to instill anew a deep REVERENCE for LIFE. We need to recapture the reverence engendered by daily contact with living creatures when we had the time and the inclination to witness the living miracles around us. We need the awareness that the quality of our lives depend on the quality of theirs.
To put this reverence into practice as far as our fishery is concerned we must extend the system of SEASONS and SANCTUARIES to cover all the threatened marine species and all areas of the archipelago. Like the crawfish, the grouper need a season to breed in peace; each large island or island group needs a sanctuary, in other words a no take marine reserve, comparable in size and protection to the Exuma Park.
We can only afford to do this if we succeed in making another profound cultural change, a respect by everyone for the LAW. In a society where everyone knows everyone else, where the majority had no real protection under the law until recently and where piracy and smuggling have been a way of life for hundreds of years, this will be hard. But if, of our own free will we reach the stage that a fisherman would no more take an undersized conch than he would go to church in rags, the only enforcement we would need is affordable and strict protection against greedy tourists and hungry poachers.
At the end of my talk, the Chairman of the Commission Winston Saunders remarked that feasting on grouper at Christmas is part of the Bahamian culture. How could I justify a closed season for grouper over Christmas?
I replied that as we cannot persuade the grouper to breed at a different time of year, in other words to change their culture, we will have to change ours. If we do not, while we might have boiled fish for a year or two more, it would be at the expense of depriving our children of those delights for ever. As we nurse the grouper back from the brink of extinction it would be appropriate to change our grouper feast from Christmas to Easter as a mark of the rebirth of our reverence for life.
Editorial, The Nassau Guardian
