Future Of Marine EEZ ‘Community Conversation’
The Department of Sustainable Development is inviting members of the public to attend an upcoming Town Hall Meeting on Monday [Oct 28] regarding the future of Bermuda’s Exclusive Economic Zone [EEZ], a circular body of water surrounding Bermuda with a 200-mile radius.
This “Community Conversation” will take place from 6:30pm until 8:30pm in the Earl Cameron Theatre, City Hall. The Minister of Environment and Planning Sylvan Richards will address the audience and a panel of experts will engage with the residents of Bermuda.
Panelists will include:
- Chris Flook who will outline the case for the largest no-take marine reserve
- Richard Winchell who will propose a mixed use approach
- Nick Hutchings who will propose consideration of the potential economic benefits of seabed exploration and mining
- Dr. Tammy Trott who will address the current status of Government’s authority to permit various activity within the EEZ
Additionally, ZBM TV 9 will show a Special 30-minute programme on the future of our EEZ that will air this Thursday evening at 8pm.
The Government previously released a Consultation Document on the EEZ, which follow below [PDF Here]
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I’d like to know just how 200 miles of water around Bermuda would be Policed
Especially when that equals over 125,000 square miles and currently we can’t Police the jet skis adequately!
There are new technical developments in surveillance from the air. I am not talking about the very expensive satellite method; but the use of a drone which which can orbit an area of hundreds of sq. miles and which can
remain on station for over five hours or more.
There is nothing to say that Bermuda could not buy that technology and have Bermudians to operate the ground station just like we took over the air traffic control operation; even after the doubts of many in the wake of the American military withdrawal from Bermuda and their running of Bermuda’s Air traffic control system. Drone surveillance will come in useful for keeping an eye on Bermuda’s off shore fishing potential and a possible potential in deep sea mining. Needless to say I am against the concept of a so called blue hallo set up around Bermuda’s waters which will shut off any potential of the development of a third economic leg for Bermuda. A spot on the National Geographic channel will do nothing for the future economic stability for Bermuda.
I think drones would be more expensive than satellite tracking. We wouldn’t launch our own satellite, rather we’d have a purchasing contract with the existing commercial satellite companies. In one story of policing an EEZ (I forget the country), the foreign vessel was tracked and any time it came near a port, the EEZ country called ahead to that port and had the vessel turned away. After several ports, they had to give themselves up. So diplomatic solutions can be better than operating everything yourself.
The idea that the waters are being shut off forever is a myth. It would be a Bermuda law that can be repealed or amended by the government of the day like any other. It’s probably softer than a 262-year lease.
The Bermuda Government cannot even apparently afford to equip the Fisheries dept and Marine police section,so you think they can magically transition into paying for multimillion dollar drone systems , satelite relay time to operate the drones, multiple trained operators for the drones , contractors to service the drones, airspace deconfliction,and so on and son and afford the inevatable attrition of the aircraft?
You can talk loosly of drones , the fact are it is horribly expensive it aint gonna happen.
As far as fishing offshore dream on, Bermudians dont do it now, havent done it in th past and arent going to fish far offshore in the future.
the first fisherman that starts fishing industrially will put all others out of business, the end full stop.
exporting fish? dream on. aint gonna happen.
Offshore fishing is a 1960s wet dream , not a 2010s reality.
That is where you are wrong in regard to fishing; Bermudians once made up
fishing crews out of Canada. It’s in our genes. I don’t have faith that IB
is going to be around for years to come. How long do you think the nations of the world with their fiscal problems and their out of control budget deficits will allow their domestic companies and corporate entities escape
paying higher taxes by residing in low tax regimes like Bermuda? I listen
very carefully to the statements coming out of those international financial meetings of the leading economic nations of the world. They make it plain time after time that they consider low tax regimes have no place in the new world economic order. After we realize that the fig-leaf which we presently cover ourselves with in regard to IB; is not going to save us economically; than we will turn to such things as off shore fishing and deep sea mining. We will turn to those things because we will have no other choice.
Just because it is in the genes doesnt mean it is going to work.
Bermudians used to rake salt in the Turks , but i digress .
I present for your entertainment and edifacation , Bermudas ICAAT quotas and TACS-
Bluefin – 4 metric tonnes
Swordfish 35 MT – (oh thats shared with BVI and Turks )
Albacore 200 mt (shared with BVI and Turks )
Bigeye 2100 mt (shared with BVI and Turks )
so 4000 kg of bluefin @ avg 250 kg per fish = 16 fish per year
so 11666 kg of Sword @ avg 100kg per fish = say 117 fish per year
so with out wasting more of my day, go to the bank tell you want 5$ mil plus another $mil startup to bring in a long liner to catch that number of fish (shared with everyone else here.)
If i need to stick the Bayonet in further lets get in to more regulations, infrastructiure staffing , marketing ect …
thank you Joe and Mangrove Tree.
let me reiterate:
1) any reserve is not necessarily permanent and the legislation can be modified if and when Bermudians decide. protect it now. study it, perhaps for these mining opportunities. re-open it.
2) the quota isn’t big enough for a wide-scale, off-shore fishery.
Putting aside the wildly controversial nature of ICCAT, their quotas are derived mainly from submitted catch statistics. Dealing with ICCAT to adjust quotas would be a lot easier than initiating any fish take in a Grade 1 Marine Reserve.
Bermuda… where we import over 75% of our seafood while surrounded by hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of sustainable sovereign water. With a no take reserve of the size proposed, Bermudian fishing interests would be 75% less likely to reach their potential in decades to come. Someone, somewhere is meeting the demands of our seafood consumption… and we have no control over how they are doing it. Blue Halo won’t fix that.
Does it not seem backwards that we, who are not abusing our resources, are being pressed to sacrifice our access as a stepping stone for various alphabet groups to address IUU fishing in international waters?
David Saul advocates taxing mining companies 50% of their net profits,they haven’t even found anything yet,the IB sector,no capital gains tax,with combined profits how many times our GDP?IB infrastructure can be reportedly as little as a post box,sea mining involves a huge infra structure,huge risks(equally huge premiums)and potentially huge profits if successful,why come to our eez if taxes are so high? There’s a lot of ocean out there.
The seabed mining proposals are so nebulous, the first person to make a statement wins, in this case the pro mining individuals.
Now try and prove its a load of crap, youw ill have a hard time, you will look like an enviromentalist,greenpeace loving weeny, hippy, long hair vegan smelly, communist chappy.
On the other hand if the anti crowd had come out with the negative realities of seabed mining first , the pro mining crowd would look like a bunch of scheming capitalist bastards .
I propose the seabed mining is not feasable at depth and only feasible in shallower water 1500m?
Whats at 1500m or less? Bowditch, Argus, Challenger, the Bermuda seamount?
carefull what you wish for when you start entertaing seabed mining.
I would suspect the real reason for the talk of seabed mining is that trasure hunting for deep water shipwrecks is more on the cards , and achievable. Who gets the profits from that?
excuse my spelling.
Get rid of Fisheries enforcement officers.They do nothing but drive around in boats.When was the last time someone was prosecuted for breaking fishing laws.
OBA take a look at what this department does and you will discover,NOTHING!
We are being presented a false deadline to address a fabricated threat. We don’t even have independent analyses or impact assessments that were not paid for by a US NGO. Quite frankly, we as a country can’t afford to commission the data so critical to making a proper assessment of our vast resource. This is simply not something that should be taking up time, effort and civil service man hours right now.
We should commit to a long term evaluation of the EEZ with a view to an overall management plan, which carries our solid track record for conservation from the reef platform out to 200NM… when we can afford it… and in our own time.
We must not allow effective PR and emotion to cloud rational thought. We have to think before we believe.
We do not have a solid track record on conservation of the reef platform, it has always been a case of too little, too late, and not enough.
While one might cite the fish pot ban as the shining example of conservation effort, that the marine enviroment was allowed to get into such a state in the first place, with out of control illegal fishing and overfishing illustrates my point.
To this day some of the same fishermen continue to fish illegal pots,steal from other fishermens pots, overfish rockfish ,sell imported fish as local ,( even diversfyiing into ahem , the importation of herbal condiments to go with their ill goten fish.}
Why do they get away with it? From sucessive Governments too little commitment, too late, and not enough .
I think its a bit unfair for Mr cutback to single out the enforcement officers . at the bottom of the totem pole,for his wrath , when really the issue is with disfunctional Political leadership, down through a bloated disfunctional, bureaucratic civil service management.
I think you are missing the point. We need to protect our seas from others coming in and raping them! Other oceans are dying and commercial fishmen from all over the world have a lot of mouths to feed. This is only going to get worse in the future. We are going to have to FIND a way to police it or risk that everything in it gets stolen! It is an obvious choice to me!
To police our EEZ weather it be drones, sat footage etc. why not put it out to tender ? Show us what you can do, prove it, and give us a price. I would then ask, what happens if we prove illegal fishing is taking place ? We get footage of this going on, then what? Call them on the VHF and tell them to leave, well good luck with that. I know, we could arm one of the big fast ferry`s we don`t need to go out and sink those international law breakers ! As far as Pew and Blue Halo, please, just go away your not needed here. Tired of hearing Chris Flook and his rehearsed commentary no doubt given to him by Pew. Who by the way has just failed in their attempt to make Antarctica the biggest reserve on the planet ! So thank you Pew for your concern and “GOOD BYE ” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!