Despite a plethora of illegal practices affecting the islands' fisheries, seafood continued to be the main export of the Turks and Caicos, a British dependency in the Caribbean with a population of fewer than 19,000.
According to a report in the Turks and Caicos Weekly News, “Marine products, primarily spiny lobster and conch, continue to be the main exports, [though] the sector is marred with challenges.”
Chief among the challenges, the newspaper states, is illegal fishing by foreign vessels. Other problems affecting the islands' fisheries are “fishermen catching undersized lobster, using chemicals on coral reefs and fishing outside of the allocated season.”
The newspaper based its report on the Turks and Caicos Islands' Department of Statistics' latest merchandise trade report, released in March, which showed that exports had declined by almost 50 percent between 2016 and 2017, moving from USD 4.5 million (EUR 3.65 million) to USD 2.3 million (EUR 1.87 million). The newspaper did not cite the report's export figures for seafood.
It noted recent government initiatives to boost the country's export sectors, including the introduction of a closed season for conch.
"With the recent introduction of a closed season for conch, it is expected in the short-term that conch export will decline but in the long-term conch export should increase,” the report said. “This recent announcement is a policy designed to allow sufficient time to facilitate the vital growth and development stages of the baby conch.”
Efforts are also underway to diversify the fishing industry so as to increase fish exports.
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