An island without fish? Cuba aims to tackle problem with law overhaul

Cuba's fish stocks have dropped drastically in recent decades due to overfishing and environmental factors, scientists say, prompting the country last month to pass a law imposing new regulations on the fishing industry.

"We catch less, about half of what we once did," said Carlos Duran, a leathery-skinned 63-year-old who has been fishing for more than four decades. "Some people go out 10 times without catching anything at all."

Cuba estimates the population of the 54 species it fishes commercially, such as grouper and snapper, has declined 44 percent in the last five years with catches falling 70 percent over that period.

The decline has been a blow to the fishing industry, which already suffered the dismantling of its long-range state fishing fleet because it could not maintain it in the wake of the collapse of Cuba's former benefactor the Soviet Union.

The expansion of fish farming has been unable to make up for the shortfall worsened by a decline in imports in the cash-strapped country. Much of what seafood Cuba does produce, including lobster and shrimp, is exported to generate much-needed hard currency.

And while the Communist-run country began allowing private fishermen to sell their produce a decade ago, albeit only to the state, red tape poses serious barriers to their productivity.

Cubans eat a quarter of the seafood they did at the end of the 1980s, according to official data, and just a fraction of the global average fish consumption per capita, leading them to joke bitterly about being an island without fish.

The new fishing policy aims to at least recover domestic stocks by curbing illegal fishing and implementing science-based fisheries management using catch quotas and zoning.

These are best practices that are increasingly being adopted worldwide although Cuba is a forerunner in the Caribbean, according to Daniel Whittle, a senior director at the Environmental Defense Fund, a U.S. non-profit group that has been advising Cuban authorities on conservation and sustainable fishing.

Whittle said the practices should also make the industry more resilient to new challenges like climate change and protect its rich marine biodiversity including some of the world's most pristine coral reefs. While the practices might affect fish supply in the short-run, they should boost it in the long-run. Some private fishermen in Cojimar, just east of Havana, are nervous that its implementation by often heavy-handed authorities will make their tough job even harder.

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VINTAGE BOATS

Cuba's overhauled fishing regulation aims to phase out state boats that are not up to modern environmental standards, which could further shrink the number of state fishermen from 3,376.

It also finally offers legal recognition – and therefore benefits like a state pension – to Cuba's 18,638 private commercial fishermen, although it does not address some of their most pressing concerns.

Limits on boat building and imports, for example, mean private commercial fishermen own vessels often predate Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, like the island's candy-colored vintage American cars, and are kitted out with motors from decades-old Soviet land vehicles.

"We use motors from land vehicles, so motors that for a while were driving an ambulance, tractor or even forklift," said Georis Lopez, 47, whose boat uses a Czechoslovak motor from the 1980s.

Even fishermen who are considered "self-employed" are legally obliged to sell their catch at fixed prices to state companies.

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Many say they can only make a living by selling some of their catch on the black market, often to the private restaurants that have flourished in recent years in tandem with tourism.

That lucrative sector is increasingly competing with state stores for what seafood Cuba does produce.

Cubans say they are frustrated at having to eat freshwater farmed catfish heavily stocked in state stores while tourists dined on snapper and swordfish.

"We have fought in the revolution for everyone to be the same but we have social classes once again," grumbled Jose Armando Hernandez, 60, at a seafood store in Havana. "It's good this new fishing law is coming if it improves the offer and price of fish."