Proud Antiguan? Why?

Yesterday I was flicking through the local radio stations and heard what sounded like a parliamentary debate on the Economic Citizenship program. The passion in the speaker's voice who clearly was against the idea was intense. Whenever I hear people speak about it they act like having an Antiguan passport is the best thing a person can have in their possession, and that permitting others to get it somehow dilutes it's value. Antiguans have to be some of the proudest nationals in the world. They make sure everyone knows that they are from Antigua. "Me bharn yah", "Antigua me come from" or "Me nuh bang water" are some of the first phrases in dialect any new resident learns when they make the move here. To be honest they are phrases that they are never permitted to forget, but that's another story altogether. I see more and more young people with tattoos of the flag on their arms, or of the name Antigua inked across their backs, or of the word Wadadli across a forearm. Many local artists sing about Antigua in their songs and there is no shortage of people naming their businesses after the ancient Amerindian name for the island. Despite Wadadli being a slightly modified version "ouladli" found in that famous Carib to French 1666 dictionary, it's still cool to see and hear the word which was used by the Arawak people now long gone and often forgotten here. Island pride or country pride isn't unique to Antigua and I have witnessed it in many of the countries around the world that i have traveled to. However, what is different to me is that many Antiguan's seem to be blindly patriotic or proud of the fact that they are Antiguan. As a proud Antiguan reading this can you easily answer why you are proud to be from Antigua? What makes it so special to hold a passport from this little country? Think about that while continue reading.
There are so many examples of things that are happening in our country which makes you wonder where the patriots have gone. I'd like to touch on one of these examples. Recently on my walks at dawn with my young son I have been astonished by the amount of garbage on the sides of the road. Currently I am renting in Hodges Bay and it truly makes me wonder where these people who throw the garbage come from. They can't be the same proud Antiguans who "were bahn ya" who didn't "bang water" can they? It's a shame to say that the answer is often a resounding YES. Everyday our proud and patriotic people do things to this little island which corrode the very thing that we should be most proud of.

The pristine and beautiful environment which all of our ancestors found here when they first "bang(ed) water" to get here has never taken the beating it's getting at the moment, and we all need to do more as patriots to save our patrimony. I don't think i ever remember seeing as much garbage laying around the place as I do now. Even with regular cleanups the garbage returns daily. Fresh KFC boxes and cups, Guinness bottles, styrofoam food containers are more easy to spot than wildlife down at the beach. Whenever I see people discarding trash I say something. It shouldn't be acceptable to watch people discard garbage on the beach, in the bush or on the side of the road. Yesterday I drove to the government's Hospitality Training Institute at High Point, and realized that I had to write about this issue. I had to say something. Here is a school of young Antiguans and Barbudans who may be the future leaders of our nation, and right outside the school there are piles of garbage up and down the road. Where the students wait for the bus a pile of garbage grows daily. If these future hoteliers ignore the trash sitting at their feet and don't have the interest to do something about it then I am not sure what we can do as a nation. Proud Antiguans have to find a voice and remember what it is that you are proud of. Be brave as well as proud and stand up for what is right otherwise before long your pride may be something as historic as the Arawaks.

Music Industry Icon Says Antigua Making a Big Mistake.

Many of us will remember the offshore gambling money flowing in Antigua in the late 90s and after the millennium. It was like nothing we had seen since independence. One of my friends who worked for one of the biggest online Casinos here said "everyone was spending like cowboys in a tavern".
In fact, most of my friends were working in that industry during that time. If you knew how to use a computer and happened to be searching for work you were hired and were getting paid way more than your peers were in the hotels.
Four of my close friends started working for a online casino in the mid 90s. They were the only employees working in the converted house in Blue Waters, and within a few years they were writing marketing checks to the tune of millions to companies like MSN and Yahoo. They had moved out of that little house office and were taking up an entire commercial building. They were working with dozens of others and the company was still growing. The island was buzzing and everyone was seeing some of the pie. The trickle down was more of a waterfall than a trickle. I remember attending one of the offshore sports betting companies new years party which they allegedly spent EC $100,000 on. None of us will ever know how much money was passing though Antigua's banks, but we were the biggest players in a multi-billion dollar industry. There were regular twenty five year olds making way more money than both of their parents were combined, and many of them never imagined it would end. You know what they say about all good things though.
Things really took a turn when Jay Cohen, the founder of one of our biggest sports books, was arrested as he arrived in the USA in July 2004. He felt that the USA had no right to be preventing people in the USA from betting offshore in Antigua. The US had recently used The Wire Act to stop US citizens from placing bets abroad over phone or internet. He was the first person to be charged by the USA for violating the Federal Wire Act. The US did many other things in an effort to stop their citizens from betting off shore including going after the credit card companies and other payment providers. It became extremely difficult to do business, and many casinos and sports books either folded or pulled out of Antigua. The economic trickle down really became a trickle, and in 2003 Antigua and Barbuda took on the USA at the World Trade Organization saying that US policy on online gambling violated WTO rules. In a David vs Goliath ruling, the WTO agreed with Antigua thus beginning a decade of negotiations and arbitration. In 2007 the WTO essentially gave Antigua the right to sell US copyrighted material to the tune of about US $20 million dollars a year in a twisted form of sanctions. It was a fraction of what Antigua and Barbuda was looking for, and it was an extremely controversial judgement which wasn't going to be a quick fix. Either way, Antigua would more than likely be getting the dirty end of the stick. It makes me think about all those WTO protests to be honest.
Anyway, Jay Cohen seemed optimistic when I spoke to him about it. He had done his jail time and was back in Antigua taking a back seat to it all but following the discussion nonetheless. A few years ago he told me that he felt that the minute Antigua started selling US copyrighted material, companies like Microsoft would be lobbying for a change in offshore gaming policy. He felt that offshore gambling's biggest allies would be the American companies who were having their material legally sold (pirated) by Antigua. Antigua and Barbuda didn't jump at the green light to be modern day privateers and instead continued to negotiate hoping that the USA would relax their stance. Nothing changed and on Monday Antigua applied to the WTO to start imposing the recommended sanctions. The World Trade Organization agreed, and Antigua has said that it would be reasonable and responsible in the way that it sells US intellectual property.
Like most people I am eager to find out which property is going to be reasonably sold without the owner of the property getting paid. You can imagine how unreasonable the property owner will think it is.
This weekend I spoke with one of Antigua's most respected music producers about the WTO judgement. Torsten Stenzel is a German award winning musician, songwriter, composer and producer who now resides and runs his internationally famous studio here in Antigua. Apart from local and regional artists like Jah Cure, Buju Banton, Drastic, Jus Bus, Tian Winter, Claudette Peters, Logiq, Kenni Blessin, Itchy Feet, Asha, Shya and Promise, Torsten has worked with huge international acts and his list of associates and collaborators is huge. Since 2007 he has attracted many music industry icons here to Antigua to work in his studio and while his Antiguan company is getting stronger and stronger he is worried that all of his work will be jeopardized by what our government does next.
Torsten says, "Selling music and movies without paying the musicians and artists is unfair and will cause worldwide problems and not just problems with the US. Since illegal downloading went through the roof, the music industry is having a hard time, and artists get little or no revenue from selling music. Some talents live like homeless people yet have a million views on their youtube music video. People always think the pop stars are rich but the ones who are making money are way less than 1%. Government needs to protect their creative people and not just sell them out with no pay."
I reminded him that this would only apply to US copyrighted material and that Antigua has been backed into a corner by the USA. Tosten disagrees. "I think that once a torrent site is up and running it will be difficult to make sure that only US copyrighted material is being sold. Before you know it there will be every kind of music from all over the world being sold on it. I agree that the US has no right to destroy the local online gambling industry, but if you legalize downloading copyrighted material you are hurting the artists that have nothing to do with the problem and not hurting the US government. It is the wrong signal and will effect people who have nothing to do with the original problem. I have had big industry names calling me recently asking me about what the BBC is saying about Antigua setting up a pirate site. I don't want this! In March we fly in Sony Music executives from Japan, and the news that Antigua supports music piracy isn't going to be positive for our relationship and future music business coming to Antigua from Japan."
I put it to Torsten that it may be foreseeable that the music industry would end up being indirect allies in Washington and that artists could possibly join with Antigua in the call for a change on US gambling policy. Torsten didn't seem as optimistic as Jay Cohen though, and for a moment I had a vision of Madonna, Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen doing a TV commercial calling for a boycott of Antigua as a tourism destination until they stopped stealing their music. Who knows what will happen when the downloads start. The USA has made it clear that they would consider any dowloads to be theft and piracy. IT's something to think about and there can be no doubt the this story is long from being finished.

A new locally produced and narrated video of The Eco Tour | Adventure Antigua

The Eco Tour | Adventure Antigua

Minister of Fisheries in Antigua is hooked and can't get away.

Yes that's right. He's like a big mouth grouper who's bitten off more than he can chew. The hidden circle hook is riveted solidly in the side of his jaw and he's slowly being reeled in.  He's changing his colours but the camouflage won't help him. He's regurgitating the bait, but the hook is set. He's looking for rocks to hide behind, but there are none big enough. He's shaking his head in protest, but the line is taught and he's coming around. There is no escape now Brother B, you are coming up and have to concede that you are no longer in control.

Hilson Baptiste, Minister of Agriculture and responsible (astonishingly) for The Environment Division and Fisheries was in parliament bad talking me trying to suggest that because my dad, the lawyer, represents illegal French fishermen, I'm a hypocrite for calling on better environmental protection and trying to get the Fisheries regulations signed. In addition, he tried to make it sound like he's the one who has been pushing for the regulations to be passed. The reality is that we, the people, forced him to sign this thing and despite him doing everything he could to bury it, the regulations are starting him in the face once again and he must sign them. For years the finished regulations languished on his desk while he gazed into his solitaire playing computer doing nothing to help our severely depleted fishery. Year after year they remained unsigned despite all the work from the Fisheries Department and consultations with stakeholders that went into getting them to that stage. Each time someone asked him for a reason why he wasn't signing them he gave some lame excuse or the other. The Chief Fisheries officer was quoted time and time again as saying that her hands were tied on fisheries issues until the regulations were signed by the Minister. The Environmental Awarenss Group, The Fishermens Cooperative, The Sport Fishing Association, Fisheries, the press, and many individuals like myself asked for him to sign them and he ignored us all. The regulations did two things that frightened him. The first is that they actually gave slightly more control to the highly educated, knowledgeable people who have spent their careers day in and day out running the Fisheries Division. These people who know better than any other civil servant what is going on out on the water have had no say on what goes on out there up until now. The Minister who once told me after I invited him to come and see some of our reefs for himself: "Me cant swim so what the hell am I going to do out on a boat..." is the one who makes the key decisions in the Fisheries Department. Decisions that often are polar opposite to what his own officers have recommended. Take for example the Cabinet decision which called for Fisheries officers and other authorities to stop enforcing the laws which pertain to spear fishing. It is illegal to spear fish in Antigua without a permit from the Chief Fisheries Officer. Brother B went to Cabinet and lied to his Cabinet members telling them that his officers said that people should be permitted to spear fish. This information came to me from fisheries officers and from one of the Ministers who was in Cabinet. Imagine a Minister convincing other Cabinet Members to issue an order which would see that officers charged with upholding the law permit these laws to be broken. 
The second reason that he hadn't signed the regulations which he himself has been quoted as saying is that he didn't want anyone telling him to sign anything. He wasn't going to be pushed to do anything. It's something these elected officials seem to forget time and time again.. We elected you and you work for us!!!
In March or 2012 when the general public was up in arms about the huge investment being made by Chinese businessmen to target lobster in our waters, I started an education campaign which attempted to show just how broken our fisheries policy and current regulations were. IT wasn't the fault of Chinese, or of Dominicans, or of French fishers. It was the fault of the Minister responsible for Fisheries who permitted a free for all type of policy to carry on. It was and still is the wild west out there and lawlessness prevails. Once again calls were made to sign the completed fisheries regulations. Together with my fellow board members of The Antigua Conservation Society, we started a online petition to the PM. It was clear that Brother B would never sign the regulations unless something drastic was done. Thousands signed it and the press loved the idea that people were so interested in seeing the regulations signed. Brother B knew the tide was turning, and to find a way out of the hole he had dug himself into he decided to start from scratch with the regulations. Defering a decision was as good as not making a decision. New regulations would be drafted. This would delay the process and I think he hoped fishers would water down the regs, but after months of working on it the opposite came to be true. Consultations provided stronger regulations. Fishers were tired of the status quoe. They were tired of catching less and going further to do so. The press and general public was all over the issue.

Everyone has been watching and he's now got to sign it. The Fisheries department sent the redrafted regs to the ministry of legal affairs has FINALLY (after nearly three months) said they are good to go. Sooooo to save face after being found on the wrong side of public opinion on this issue, brother b is now suggesting in parliament that he's the champion of the fisheries regulations. He is the savior of the reefs and the fishery. In parliament this week he declared that I made people sign a document "against him" and that he's the one who got the regulations to where they are. He bad talked me saying that I am only and environmentalist when it suits me and all sorts of other things aimed at personally tarnishing my reputation. I don't care what this big mouth grouper thinks of me. I have one thing to say to him as he flips and flops on the slimy deck..... which is what I have been saying from the start....: JUST SIGN THE BLASTED THING ALREADY!  

Cruise ship passengers missing our boat

Please be advised that we have left people behind at the cruise ship dock far too many times because they were on cruise ship time and arrived late, so make sure you check what is local time as that is the time we quote and run our operation on. Thanks much.

Community spirit shines during marine disaster

Antigua had a tragedy unfold on Sunday when a 24 foot fishing boat with two adults and two little children sank off shore. There was some confusion about where they went down and without an EPIRB the search party had to guess where they might have been. Darkness fell and they had not been found. Some boats searching out there refused to come in. Some of our friends and crew helped us get fueled up using jerry cans and we set off after 2 am. It was a long night for those of us out there searching but of course nothing like the night that the little boys and the adults were having out there cold and wet. By dawn when I took this photo east of Antigua, dozens of other boats joined the search along with Caribbean helicopters, and two fixed wing planes. We tried not to all look at the same place and after 7AM a cooler was found drifting by some friends on the north side of Antigua. They stayed with it to determine its drift direction. Then they gave directions to the plane and in no time the capsized boat with the four survivors were found. It was an amazing result which really showed the type of community spirit we have here in Antigua. The concern and care was overwhelming. So many volunteered to help and offer resources. This kind of positivity fueled optimism at a time when so many people were feeling despair. The kids and adults are recovering well, and so many others delighted with the result.
Www.AdventureAntigua.com

Our local electricity provider gets cut off for non payment.

This just was posted on the APUA (Antigua Public Utilities Authority) Facebook page:

The Antigua Power Company (APC), independent power producer, on October 12th advised the Authority that as a result of outstanding payments owed to them by APUA amounting to
$36,862,310.70 EC, it will be suspending power generation at its 50.9 mega watt power plant at the Crabbs Peninsula. This plant usually supplies 11 mega watts to the power grid.
To date however, APC has carried through with this threatened action and has gone beyond this in suspending generation at their Black Pine facility at the Crabbs Peninsula as well. They
have therefore reduced their usual supply of 34.5 mega watts to the grid to 16 mega watts as of 9:00 am this morning. They have informed the utility that they will further reduce this supply by 11 mega watts by 2:00 pm and the remaining 5 mega watts will be withdrawn by 4:00 pm unless the outstanding payment owed to them in its entirety is remitted. This has a severe impact on the provision of power to the Antiguan public as APC usually supplies 61% of the daily power demand. The Board of Commissioners and management have sought to bring this matter to the immediate attention of Antiguan and Barbudan consumers.
Currently the daily peak demand for power in Antigua is 51 mega watts. This action by APC has forced APUA to rely solely on its own generating capacity, which can currently supply 20 mega watts to the grid. This shortfall has forced load-shedding activities and consumers are asked to be prepared. The APUA Board of Commissioners and Management would like the public to know that this is being treated as the highest priority, and will provide updates as this situation develops.

Brother B (hilson baptiste), minister of fisheries has to be joking!

After years of complaining about the lack of action seen with regard to enacting new fisheries regulations, The Antigua Conservations Society started an online petition (seen here) to request help from the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Baldwin Spencer. The news of this petition spread like fire and within a few days the Minister of Fisheries said that he would sign the regulations after more consultations. This was met with mixed feelings by the ACS for two reasons. 1) The Fisheries Act which was passed years before after a monumental amount of consultations with fishers and stakeholders provided regulations which were sitting at the minister's desk for years. It seemed to be a time wasting effort to have the same process done once again ignoring all the data that had been collected already which resulted in the very same regulations still sitting on his desk. 2) It was also felt that these consultations were just another in a long series of games played by the Fisheries Minister in an effort to make sure that the new act wasn't past. How would these new consultations be designed to get a different outcome?

Well the new rounds of lengthy consultations earlier this summer were managed by the Chief Fisheries officer and her team both here in Antigua and in Barbuda. Hundreds of hours or work eventually culminated months later in a new set of regulations which finally were sent to the minister for him to sign late last week. Today, a reporter asked Minister Baptiste when the regulations which were given to him by his Chief Fisheries officer were going to be signed. His reply was astonishing! He said that before he signs, there needs to be more consultations. Once again the work and effort done by the fisher folk of Antigua and Barbuda together with the Fisheries Department isn't good enough? Who is he going to consult with now? The Japanese? There doesn't need to be any consultations at all just a signature which will see a slight change in the way our marine resources are managed so that they may be there for generations to come. Too bad for them!

There you have it ladies and gentlemen. Our marine resources are being rapidly depleted and our Minister continues to stall much needed protection measures. It's time for a change and not just in terms of regulations!!!

Online campaign on fisheries matters produces fantastic results.

As many readers of my blogs know, the 2006 Fisheries Act has been sitting languishing with the Minister of Fisheries, waiting for him to sign off on the accompanying regulations. While awaiting this evasive signature, unsustainable fishing methods continue to prevail in our marine environment. The total lack of marine management remains incredibly disappointing. Time and time again highly educated and knowledgeable fisheries officers have been quoted as saying "our hands are tied until we have signed regulations". The call to have these regulations signed has come from far and wide within the community mainly because of the situation we are seeing out on the water, but also because the document in questions and it's regulations were developed after consultations with fishers, their associations, environmental groups and other stakeholders. We were all just waiting for the Fisheries Minister's signature. The Antigua Conservations Society decided that all of these stakeholders had done enough complaining about the situation without getting a result. We had all read enough articles in Caribarena.com and in the Daily Observer about the situation and we had all heard stakeholders on the radio being interviewed. The island was fed up with wrongs not being made right with lobster fishing, with parrot fish netting, with conch fishing, and with all the other types of uncontrolled over fishing. We felt that there was no doubt that we needed to take it all to the next level. Our first step was starting a simple online campaign with change.org which attempted to collect signatures petitioning the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda to get involved. It "went viral" here in Antigua and the media seemed to love the concept and more and more "buzz" only helped the cause. Within a short time we reached 2000 signatures to Prime Minister, Baldwin Spencer begging him to get involved in order to save our reefs and marine eco systems.
It wasn't long before we saw results. Minister Hilson Baptiste who is minister of Environment, Minister of Fisheries, Minister of Lands, Housing and Agriculture was interviewed saying that he was doing something about the situation and would in fact sign the Fisheries Act's Regulations, but first he was instructing his Chief Fisheries Officer to organize consultations on the regulations once again. Although there was some disappointment due to the fact that these consultations had happened before, it was action nonetheless. As it turned out, the consultations initiated by the Minister went very well. The Antigua Conservation Society was represented at the meetings by Fran Fuller, who had at one time represented the country and the Minister at climate change conferences around the world while working within the Ministry of Environment. Fran reported that the consultations went very well, and she felt that the Fisheries did a very good job of facilitating this fresh round of talks.
There were several sessions including sessions in Barbuda, and stakeholders from both across both islands offered input which as it turns out only made the regulations stronger. The new contributions from stakeholders only served to confirm that stronger protection measures are indeed needed and welcomed by a wide cross section of the community. Yesterday I spoke with Chief Fisheries officer, Cheryl Appleton, who confirmed what Fran has said about these consultations. She said it was fishermen who called for stronger regulations than the ones which had been sitting unsigned on the Minister's desk, and I got the feeling that she was very enthusiastic about the change that has happened. According to Mrs. Appleton, The Minister is eager to sign off on the new regulations just as he said he would in the recent interview. She says that he will have it all delivered to him by the end of this week. This is fantastic news and goes to show that we can make a difference here on this little island with just a little effort. The Antigua Conservation Society, our supporters, and all the 2300 people who signed the petition in the hope of getting the Fisheries Regulations have all made a difference, and we should be happy that the Minister is moving in the right direction. It looks like step one of our campaign may have been was all that was needed for now. It remains to be seen if the regulations will come into effect as promised and the ACS will remain vigilant, but for now the Minister seems to be doing the right thing and many of us feel good about the momentum that is pushing this important issue forward.

tracking lionfish in antigua

Several years ago I blogged that the lionfish were probably here already (read here) and there is now no doubt that they were. Within two years we are getting reports from around the island of Antigua of lionfish sightings. In order to protect our fishery and our important dive and snorkeling sites we need to be very proactive on how we track them and how we kill them. There was a great article in today's Daily Observer about the lionfish and more importantly about protecting our marine resources overall. Click here for that article. I have decided to try and keep track of sightings using Google Maps. What I plan to do is to invite any dive or snorekling operator as well as fishermen and other parties that would likely see lionfish regularly to sign up as users on a Map that i have created. They then can input lionfish sightings on the map with a date and a short explanation saying if they left the fish in the water or killed it. Anyone who isn't signed up with this map can still view it and can call me on +1 268 725 7263 if they have seen a lionfish. I will add the sighting and a date to the map. I think this is the first good step in getting a good idea on what's going on. Of course there is much more that can be done, but this is a good tool to keep track of the populations of lionfish. Remember these fish can be dangerous if not handled correctly. Make sure you do your research before you attempt to kill one. If you need more info please contact me on eliantigua@gmail.com Here is the map:
View Lionfish Tracking Antigua & Barbuda in a larger map

18 million US dollars of Government Dept in exchange for what coastal protection??

This photo below shows some of the legally designated Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) that Antigua and Barbuda currently has. Some of them were set up in the early 70s and up to now I don't know of any area within these huge expanses of "prtotected" waters that is being actively managed in any way. We see so many types of invasive non sustainable fishing methods daily within these MPAs and whenever our politicians speak of environmental protection I just laugh. Recently tears came to my eyes when I heard that our government was boasting about wiping off 18 million dollars of debt in some sort of environmental trade with Brazil. The Minister responsible says that Brazil is forgiving the debt because he and his government have promised to protect the marine coastline. There are more questions than answers with this one to be honest.

Here is a excerpt taken from The Antigua Observer:

Baptiste told the CARDI consultation that he was able to further reduce the debt to $18 million after talks in Rio in June with that country’s finance minister, Guido Mantega.
“We were introduced to a climate change organisation (The Nature Conservancy) and we are getting involved in a debt for climate adaptation swap,” Minister Baptiste said.
“We will get the climate change people to pay off the $18 million for us while we get vigorously involved in coastal zone management in Antigua & Barbuda.”

Read more here. As you can see, it's not very specific to be honest. Caribarena.com wrote another piece today questioning what exactly this all meant:

However, when Caribarena.com contacted Senior Environment Officer Ruleta Camacho and her Chief Environment Officer Diann Black-Layne, neither could share any information on the $18 million initiative.

According to Wendy Tittle, Press Secretary for Minister Baptiste, too many details cannot be divulged about the proposed initiative at this time, as the ministry is “still waiting on some documents.”

Read more: http://www.caribarena.com/antigua/environment/environment/101065-firewall-surrounds-debt-for-climate-change-project.html#ixzz20npS74Ye

My problem with all of this talk is that as the photo above shows, we already have huge areas of coastline in our country which is protected under law and on paper but not actually in practice. I hope that the Brazilian tax payers and The Nature Conservancy are not as complacent as we are here in Antigua and Barbuda. I hope they actually are going to make sure that some sort of visible marine protection goes on here. We don't have any marine patrols at all here in Antigua for all of the area that sits in Marine Protected Areas and without the 2006 Fisheries Act having any signed regulations, the "fishing free for all" continues. The marine environment is under more strain than it has ever been under and while our government ministers slap themselves on the back our our marine resources dwindle and become extinct. Protect the Marine Protected Areas and stop talking!!!!!!!!!!

Eli Fuller's response to quotes made by Hilson Baptiste, Fisheries Minister of Antigua.

Today's Daily Observer newspaper had an article today which covered comments made by Fisheries Minister, Hilson Baptise, where he says a number of extremely confusing things relating to our petition to the Prime Minster.

Essentially, I am the spokesperson for the Antigua Conservation Society and have been interviewed by www.caribarena.com and also by The Daily Observer about a petition to Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer that we have started. The petition asks the PM to take action to get the draft Fisheries Regulations signed. They have been languishing on the desk of the Fisheries Minster's desk for five years. These regulations are attached to a Fisheries Act 2004 which was developed with input from fishers and the various stakeholders prior to it going before this government all those years ago. The reason we are petitioning the PM is that the Fisheries Minister can't seem to get the regulations signed for some reason which we can't quite understand.

There has been calls for these regulations to be signed from the various stakeholders here locally for years and there has also been pressure from international groups as well. Why? Well we are currently using the 1983 Fisheries Act to protect our marine resources and those resources have taken and are currently taking a serious beating. There is pressure on every aspect of our marine resources and there are many fishing methods being used out on the reef by commercial fishermen that are totally unsustainable. Many endangered species are being fished out right before our eyes and despite urgent calls from many stakeholders and the technical people within the Fisheries Ministry including the chief Fisheries Officer, nothing happens. The Act is sitting in limbo. For more on the rules and regulations we are using currently and the ones that are still sitting waiting to be signed click here.

Anyway, our petition to the PM has generated huge interest and has gotten many people speaking about it in the media and beyond. We have about 1800 signatures on our petition and we expect to get the remaining 200 to make up our goal of 2000 within a few days. We will keep it going though until we see some results. In the meantime, we expect to deliver the signatures to the PM after we get our 2000 goal.

In today's paper, the confusing statements that Baptiste made are as follows:

1) He says that the petition is a waste of time.

If this is the case, why is he falling over himself now to say that he is going to have it signed all of a sudden?

2) He says that it couldn't have happened before because he has been traveling for the past two weeks.

Two weeks??? What about the past five years? These regulations have been sitting on his desk for ages. This isn't anything new at all.

3) He says that the criticism over the past few months because not enough was done about the terrible state of the marine resources is "politically motivated" and that we have an agenda.

This couldn't be further from the truth. Nothing I have written over the past month on the lack of action on signing off on the Fisheries Regulations has had any hint of politics. The Antigua Conservation's Facebook page and it's petition on change.org has no political undertones or language at all. We do have an agenda though and that is to get the fisheries regulations signed as they are now.

4) Another thing he says is that he is going to get a committee set up to discuss the regulations to make sure that only the best regulations are approved. He goes on to say that he will only approve the regulations which the committee of stakeholders all agree on and are regulations that they can agree to adhere to. “As I speak to you I am putting a committee together to go over the regulations to ensure that everybody agrees and are willing to comply with it,” he said.

How does any of that make sense? There are huge problems with this because as this document clearly demonstrates (click here) there have been consultations with the stakeholders. In fact, there have been many, and there is no need to step backward and revert to more consultations. It was consultations that ended up helping to get the Fisheries Act of 2004 drafted and then the Fisheries regulations drafted also. A committee filled with stakeholders will only cause the Fisheries Act to get buried if not scrapped. A talk shop is not what is needed at this point! What is needed is for the minister to sign on the dotted line. In addition, why would the Minister consider only the "best regulations" which "everyone agrees with and are willing to comply with.."? This would be like asking the bankers on Wall Street to sit on a committee to decide on what regulations should be imposed upon them and telling them that only laws that they agree with and are willing to comply with will be considered. See why this may be a problem?

An edited version of the newspaper story can be found by clicking here. You have to laugh at the comments. Anyway, as you can see, this issue isn't an easy one and there is good reason that we are petitioning the Prime Minister. Please sign the petition and join the ACS on facebook. If the petition doesn't work, we may have to go to plan B and then C. We will get some changes for sure because the future of our marine resources is sitting in the balance.

Dear Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, you must take simple action to save our reefs!

netted parrotfish by the thousands taken from the reefs

In the past five days 1400 people have signed a petition to the Prime Minister of Antigua & Barbuda. The petition has been organized by The Antigua Conservation Society and asks for the PM's help in getting the 2004 Fisheries Act signed by the Fisheries Minister who for one reason or another has not done so for years. While the Act sits languishing on his desk, the marine eco systems of Antigua and Barbuda have suffered tremendously. We are still working with legislation from the early 80s. This 2004 Fisheries Act was carefully drawn up after consultations and input with the major stakeholders including but not limited to The Fishermen's Cooperative, The Sports Fishing Association, and The Environmental Awareness Group.

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There are way too many areas of our coastal environment that are being neglected simply because there are no laws that can help them. The Chief Fisheries Officer is quoted time and time again as saying that her hands are tied until the regulations are signed. The person who need to sign it told me and others who were meeting him one day when he was Junior Minister of Tourism that he can't swim and has no interest at all going out on the water on any boat. This doesn't mean he isn't capable of understanding the issues here, but I can't help feel that he doesn't. Article after article is published like this one today featured in The Daily Observer: St. John’s Antigua- Having almost ravaged the fishing stock off Antigua, Barbuda-based marine biologist John Mussington says fishermen are now looking to employ their harmful practices on the sister isle. Their primary target: the parrot fish, which Mussington revealed, fishers are going at great lengths to capture. “That particular category of fishermen they cleaned out all the reefs in Antigua.” “The guys, not Antiguans, come and they set their gill nets and camp out on the shores over here. They target the parrot fish alone and there have been reports that they are using bleach to hunt them,” the marine biologist said. According to Mussington, when the foreign fishermen catch fish that is not the parrot fish, they dispose of them on the beaches of Barbuda. The fishermen try their best to avoid local fishers, Mussington told OBSERVER Media, plying their harmful trade when local fishermen have retired for the day. He said several attempts including calling the Coast Guard for assistance have been employed to try to stop the fish invasion off Barbuda. “People in Barbuda have tried to confiscate the nets, but it’s a losing battle. They apparently have official blessings for what they are going.” The problem has persisted for about two years, but Mussington disclosed that efforts to use bad fishing practices off the island have intensified in recent months. “Just yesterday, I received a report from a fisherman who is frustrated over here,” Mussington said adding that several reports have been made to the police. The concerns by the marine biologist comes on the heels of a Fisheries Division study which found that urgent action is needed to save the parrot fish from the gill-netting and spare fishing practices. In response to the anxiety over the local fisheries stock, the Antigua Conservation Association commissioned an online petition to force government to sign off on fisheries regulations that would aid in the protection of the marine eco-systems. Despite articles like these being written, despite desperate calls from The Fishermens Cooperative, which is the biggest association of fishermen, despite calls from all the Environmental Groups, his own Chief Fisheries Officer, and many others, Hilson Babtiste still doesn't sign it. 8000 lbs of parrotfish, almost as many reef snappers and reef groupers are being exported through the Fisheries Department to the French islands. Remember that parrotfish are the key species keeping our reefs healthy by cleaning the coral damaging algae with each fish producing about 180 lbs of sand a year. Healthy parrotfish populations mean healthy reefs and plenty of sand production. Also with healthy reefs there is less wave action and currents getting to our shores and causing beach erosion. More on parrotfish by clicking this link. As you have just read the Daily Observer article, you can see that The Fisheries Ministry knows that the parrotfish are in trouble, but for some reason they still are permitting them to be decimated through the use of huge gill nets which fishermen put along the east coast of our shores just outside the reef. We are at a tipping point, a tipping point that the cod fishermen of the North Atlantic went beyond and destroyed their own industry and way of live. Many species here including parrotfish are in danger of being wiped out due to the lack of fisheries management and stronger regulations. The 2004 Fisheries Act needs to be signed. You can help. You have spent longer reading this blog than it takes to sign the petition. The Prime Minister of our nation will see your signature and will see your comment if you leave one. Please take a moment to sign it, and as important as signing it is sharing it with your email and facebook contacts. There are a few key points which come to mind that make the new fisheries act way better than the old outdated one. The new regulations will change quite a few things which include: Stricter measures for conservation of key species: Lobster – now introduces regulations against removing "tar spot" …something that is now practiced because of EU requirements that lobsters with tar shouldn’t be shipped but for which there is no regulation under the current Fisheries regs. Also introduces closed season for lobster Conch – introduces closed season and stronger penalties for fishermen who harvest undersized conch. Turtles – hawksbills and leatherbacks would be fully protected. Greens may be allowed for capture (if an open season is declared) but with a maximum size limit as opposed to minimum size limit (as per WIDECAST recommendation) Also specifically prohibits harassment of nesting females and take of hatchlings and allows for declaration of protected turtle nesting beaches. Permitting requirements for other species that are not currently managed. e.g. Whelks, cockle and urchins.. Fishers would also need to request permits to harvest certain species. So it is not automatic that once you are a fisher you can harvest anything. It's quite possible that there could be permits for parrotfish (chub fish). Now regulates fishing inland (in ponds and dams). Better controls over gear Nets – the old act only sets regulations on seines…nothing for gill nets. With the new regs there are size restrictions on mesh, prohibition of multi-panel nets and restriction on soak time. The use of any gear not specifically regulated under the Act would need the permission of the CFO. Sets controls for sport fishing The most significant change with the new regulations is that we move to license fishers…not just the boats. And it sets requirements that anyone who wishes to be licensed must undergo some sort of training (to include sessions on conservation). In doing this the regulations also allows for licenses of fishers who break the laws to be suspended from fishing (penalties get progressively higher for repeat offenses). It also allows the Chief Fisheries Officer to refuse a license if there are grounds. New entrants to the fishery would be subject to a probationary period. This will hopefully allow us to catch under the net the people who swim out or use jet skis etc. Other things are: -providing way stiffer penalties for people who break the law as right now the penalties are not worth pursuing in the legal system. -giving the fisheries department more control of fisheries issues instead of having most of the control sitting in the hands of the minister. We have to get this thing signed by the Fisheries Minister as it's the first step on a road to a better marine environment and a better shot at having our fishing industry managed in a sustainable way so that generations of fishers to come may find something to fish for. Please sign the petition to Hon. Baldwin Spencer:

Please sign this letter to Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer and help save the reefs

Change.org|The Proven Petition Site

"You will get your money's worth by booking this excursion!"

Pirateslifeforme00

1 review

“Extreme circumnavigation...”

Reviewed June 8, 2012 NEW

We visited Antigua as part of a cruise ship itinerary. We booked the Extreme Circumnavigation excursion through Expedia. The boat was just a 3 minute walk from the pier, easy to find based on the directions in the conformation email.

You will get your money's worth by booking this excursion! Our captain was Ross, with Jordain and Trevor our crew. Very nice guys, very knowledgeable, very laid back. The tour was thorough and a beautiful opportunity for pics. It made me want to fly to Antigua and spend my whole vacation there--skip the cruise itinerary!! What a gorgeous place. I expected sting ray city to be crowded with other tours but we were the only group there so everyone had plenty of time with the rays. I was skeptical about lunch but the beach we spent time on was gorgeous and the food was pretty good, and there was plenty of it! Nelson's dockyard was full of history and another great opportunity for pics. Pillars of Hercules were a beautiful site and the snorkeling was top notch.

My only warning is that this is a LONG day and there are no bathroom facilities ladies! We were dead tired by the time we got done so be prepared, they pack in every activity they promise. Bring plenty of sunblock for reapplying.

www.adventureantigua.com

Some fun photos of our sailing day trip off Antigua yesterday

These Instagram photos were taken yesterday on my phone while we were out on a Classic Yacht Day Tour. The winds were blowing hard and after snorkeling and lunch up in Carlisle Bay we flew downwind outside Cades Reef to Pinchin Bay for some lovely beach time. Enjoy the photos and come out with us one of these days.

www.adventureantigua.com

Will the Chinese wipe out Antigua and Barbuda's lobster?

Over the past month there has been considerable media attention on the subject of certain Chinese businessmen orchestrating a massive monthly purchase and export of spiny lobster. (Click here if you want to know more about spiny lobster)
In a nutshell, these businessmen are providing boats, scuba gear and fishing equipment to fishermen here in Antigua and Barbuda in exchange to the exclusive rights to purchase this lobster from them at an elevated price than the current market price. The cost of the equipment is slowly subtracted from the payments so essentially the whole agreement is a sort of financing agreement. The deal for fishermen is irresistible.

The first big complaint in the media came from the hotel sector which became enraged when they couldn't get their usual supply of lobster. The Chinese were paying more for lobster and taking any amount supplied, so there was none being offered to the hotels. They were upset.

The second complaint came from one of the oldest lobster wholesalers here who for decades has been the biggest buyer and seller of lobster. He complained that he couldn't afford to pay as much as the Chinese for the lobster. His supply dried up and he was upset. 

The third complaint came from supermarkets and other local sources of consumption who could no longer get lobster to buy. For the first time since it opened Epicurean Supermarket has an empty lobster tank.

Recently I have heard complains against the businesses that are selling to fishermen who are being financed by the Chinese lobster mafia. They feel that it's wrong for some reason for local business to accept money loaned to fishermen from these Chinese lobster men. 

Then with all the media outcry and the calls coming in to the radio stations I started to hear more and more people complaining about the "Chinese and dem tekking all d lobster and nar left none for ahwee". Passions have run high and have even bordered on being viewed as xenophobic in some of the arguments. I say that because the focus seems to be on the notion that the Chinese are doing something wrong. All the comments are focused on the Chinese and not at all on the fisheries policy that has permitted non national entrepreneurs to capitalize on the fishery. It's not just Chinese either. One of the biggest seafood merchants in Antigua is a Syrian and most of the commercial fishing for parrot fish and lobster is being done these days by fishermen from Dominica and the Dominican Republic. Lets not even talk about the tons of fish that is caught in our waters by the French from Guadeloupe. Sustainable fishing has never been visible on the ground or in the water.

This concern that our nation's lobster stock being decimated by Chinese interests could be dealt with fairly easily I think. Once again it boils down to passing of the Fisheries Act and it's regulations and then enforcing them. This is a problem that has again and again been blamed for most of the marine conservation issues. Antigua & Barbuda are some of the only islands in the Caribbean that do not have a carefully managed closed season. Also, there doesn't seem to be any limits on catch or on export quantity. Essentially with enough money and resources, the Chinese could legally wipe out all of Antigua and Barbuda's lobster while using licensed fishermen who they finance/contract. They could do the same thing for almost all of our seafood to be honest. Just today my sister came across a group of Chinese men fishing along the Shell Beach main road. They had buckets of tiny Queen Conch (an endangered species) as well as buckets of starfish. This large group of Chinese are here working on the airport expansion and knowing that there is no fisheries management they play off their ignorance of the law and do as they like. That could be another blog entry i guess.

The issue at hand is the decimation of our lobster stock by local fishermen for Chinese consumption, and as I mentioned to fix it, our Fisheries Minster and his Chief Fisheries Officer need to work together in the interest of all of the citizens of the nation and get those regulations off the desk and into law. The interesting thing is that we even with all the media attenton and public interest we have not heard anything officially from them. This is not a problem with the Chinese, but rather a problem with the management of our fishery and the way that our fishermen utilize it. Currently the way seafood is harvested here is not sustainable, and if nothing is done there is no doubt in my mind that the only lobster my son will ever see will be in photos of them that I took before he was born.

I think it's time for action because writing and speaking about this doesn't seem to make any difference to the people making the decisions. I think we need to somehow be a bit louder. Does anyone else think it's time for an actual protest demonstration?

Other similar blog posts by me:

http://antiguaisland.blogspot.com/2011/08/french-fishermen-threaten-us-while-we.html 

http://antiguaisland.blogspot.com/2011/03/most-important-and-threatened-fish-in.html

http://antiguaisland.blogspot.com/2009_06_19_archive.html

http://www.365antigua.com/cms/content/green-environment-gill-nets-threaten-antigua-barbudas-waters


http://antiguaisland.blogspot.com/2011/07/chinese-lights-start-killing-turtles-in.html

Want to catch a blue marlin? Join us in the Antigua Sport Fishing Tournament.

Each year Adventure Antigua sends at least one of our boats to the Annual Sports Fishing Tournament here in Antigua. We have always done well and few boats have released as many marlin as our boat Xtreme has done. These days the price of fuel has limited our trips into the deep, and we have done far fewer international tournaments as well. However, there is one tournament that we try to do each year, and it's this annual one when many boats target Marlin. Last year was the first time that Adventure Antigua attempted to offset the costs associated with the tournament by taking on anglers who contributed financially. We didn't have a charter per say but each angler paid his fair share. Once again this year we are looking to do the same. Anyone who is interested in hooking up to a big marlin and fighting it to the boat so we can release it should give us a call or text. Contact me on my mobile +1 268 725 7263. For more info on the fishing and the tournament please check the link above. Here is a little compilation of video bits from the tournament last year.
www.adventureantigua.com

An Antiguan in "The Everest of sailing" once again. The Volvo Ocean Race

The Volvo Ocean Race is considered the Everest of sailing and fellow Antiguan and friend, Shannon Falcone, has done the race around the world once before. But that wasn't the highlight of his professional sailing career. After crewing on the winning America's Cup boat in the last cup challenge he has been training for the next cup and spending more time in Antigua than he has been able to in recent years. A few weeks ago he was asked to come back to the Volvo Ocean Race once again to replace an injured crew member. Their Puma sponsored boat is leading the Brazil to Miami leg and will pass close to Antigua in a few days. For more on the race click here: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/the_race/1_Overview.html and for more on where the boats are in real time check here: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/racetracker/rdc.html and for more on one of Antigua's top sportsmen ever check here: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/news/5923_Falcone-gets-his-PUMA-boots-on.html

Hope you find it interesting. eli

Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta

After four days of racing in various conditions and courses, Adventure Antigua's team Zemi wins in the Traditional Class. We had a huge team which reached 14 people in two of the races.  

  

After our engine was installed by A1 Marine in Jolly Harbour we had to do some rigging changes before the regatta and they were completed just in time for the race. With only minutes to spare, Itano, Jason and I managed to get to the Antigua Yacht Club on Wednesday. On thursday a few of us got together and went out to test the rig and see how Zemi felt. It was the first time we had sailed properly since last year. We had won our class in the regatta then, but the winds had been exceptionally light. Our sail on Thursday was fine and the boat felt good with the extra lead ballast that i had just purchased from a local scrap metal business. I took a photo of my truck deep inside the scrap metal place when I was about to collect the lead the Tuesday before. My sister Fran was going to be joining us for the regatta so she came out on the practice sail with us: All of the wooden Caribbean vessels sailing in the Traditional class of the regatta bunched up together between the Turtle Surf Shop and the Skullduggery Bar on the Antigua Yacht Club Marina. Half of them seen here: The first race was on Friday and our start was actually just after 10 am. We had two crew coming in from Tortola in the British Virgin Islands at the very last minute and they were bringing uniforms. Andy Morrell and his son Josh run HIHO which is a high end clothing company (check it out) and our team was going to look sharp if they arrived with the loot. In fact, HIHO is one of the sponsors of Antigua Sailing Week which starts here at the end of this week. Anyway, they arrived, jumped on board Zemi and we cast off our lines. The race was starting shortly, and we needed to get everyone set up (and suited up).

The Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda provided air rifles for the race committee, so i can't say the races started with a bang. Needless to say, it was quite funny hearing about that mess up on the radio. Anyway, the race started and Zemi was off. Our boat has more sail area than the others and the light winds of the first race were in our favor. We slowly pulled ahead. On the broad reach we had our spinnaker up which gave us a slightly bigger lead. When it was time to drop this sail in preparation for our sail back upwind, something went wrong. The line holding the sail to the top of the mast was jammed. There was nothing we could do but sail upwind with about four of the crew trying to bunch the sail up around the mast. Spinnakers are sails that don't go upwind and that's where we were headed. Thankfully the winds were light and the sail didn't get ripped out of the hands of our crew and torn to shreds. We were going directly for the rocks at Winter Hill and had to tack with this sail which was another challenge. Then there were other yachts which had right or way coming toward us. We had to "duck" them, still with this sail dangling from the top of the mast. Finally a decision was made to send one of the crew up to the top of the mast. Out came the bosun's chair and up the mast Jason went with a knife! The sail was finally cut down, but we had to get it fixed, and in no time we were sending Nikolai back up to get it prepped for the next time we had to use it. Here is a pic of Nik way up at the top while we were racing: Here he is on his way back down:

With this kind of team work we were able to finish enough ahead to beat the second place boat by under a minute on corrected time after the handicap had been worked out. Here is some of the team celebrating our win back at the dock:

More on the rest of the Classic Yacht Regatta tomorrow.