The following letter to the press was published by The Tribune, July 30, 2010 and is reprinted here with the permission of the author and presents a slightly different view of the issues faced by fishermen in The Bahamas.
Fishing industry problems have been with us for decades
Abner Pinder
I again am very amused by a Press Release by Mr. Ryan Pinder on the Fishing Industry and the problems facing the Fishing Industry in our Bahamas.
Mr. Pinder is trying to make the public believe that these problems have only started under this Administration which he KNOWS full well is as far as East is from West from the TRUTH.
Ryan is in his mid 30's and his family has been involved in the buying of Lobster here in Spanish Wells almost from the very beginning.
Mr. Pinder, I believe, also knows that this problem is not new and has been in existence for about 40 yrs.
No Government has been able to force the Defence Force to do its job of protecting the MARINE RESOURCES of the Bahamas from its inception.
The Defence Force vessels can only be sent out to do its job [which they are] but if the job is not done who is to blame?
It is sad to see someone trying to gain cheap political points in matters of this sort when the problem was there for the entire 5 yrs. that the P L P were in power and even when they were in power before 1992 and I did not hear Mr. Pinder raising hell with them for not doing what needed to be done then.
This Government has started to have a Defence Force base built in Ragged Island which when completed should be a Huge help in stopping the Poachers from Raping our Fishing grounds.
There was an incident with a Spanish Wells fishing boat and a Dominican fishing boat during this summer but the truth of the matter is I was called by satellite phone given the G.P.S. readings of where the incident was taking place and I called a gentleman in the defence force with the information and in about 3 or 4 hours one of the defence force fast boats was on the scene took the Dominicans and brought them to Nassau and they were put in the Detention Center at Carmichael Road.
Truth is that during the P L P 's tenure the economy was supposedly in good shape and nothing was done, however the Ministry of National Security has during this year 2010 done a lot more than has been done in a long time to try and alleviate the problems which fishermen face.
I am not trying in anyway to belittle the problems that exist because they are huge I just would like for when someone complains for it to be unbiased and the same complaints be across the board no matter who the Government is.
Abner inder
Spanish Wells, Eleuthera
Bahamas
Formost in my mind is the old school master knocking their heads together.
All of them.
As for patrolling Bahamian waters thoroughly, impossible.
However, there are enough Bahamian eyes at sea to seriously keep the Defence force busy interdicting both Commercial and recreational interlopers if they really cared to.
Why is the RBDF not doing their job ? This is a disgrace.It reminds me when I was a child on the way to a beach outing.The RBDF pulled our family over, boarded us with machine guns & searched our boat while the drug boats sped past on the other side.We were searched so the other boats could pass, that’s what I think anyway.Its been going on for a long time, yet nothing is done about it.I think the government should give the Spanish wells boats their own machine guns for their own protection.If the RBDF is not going to help, let the Spanish Wells fishermen do the policing,its clear to me that PLP,FNM have no intentions of doing it, the question is why ? Who is benefiting from the lack of enforcement, this is what we have to find out.Its a shame Ryan Pinder is trying to use this for political gain while the PLP have been just as bad or worse that the FNM at dealing with the problem.Its past time for the right thing to be done.It seems to me that both PLP & FNM can find money for anything they want, why not this.Instead of pumping the millions into ZNS & Bahamasair, put it into our own protection.This would also help with the vast amount of fish & crawfish the American yatchs are reaping from our waters everyday.Just imagine trying to do that in US waters, they would be on you like white on rice.
Yes, I totally agree. The government should do something about the issue immediately to avoid further problems.