Min. Holder attends 13th Meeting of Ministerial Council of Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism

Ministry of Agriculture, Press Release – Thursday, June 13, 2019

The Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder and the Chief Fisheries Officer, Denzil Roberts are currently attending the Thirteenth Meeting of the Ministerial Council of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), being held in St Kitts and Nevis. The meeting commenced this morning with an opening ceremony at the Mariott Beach Resort and will conclude tomorrow afternoon.

The CRFM is an inter-governmental organization with its mission being “To promote and facilitate the responsible utilization of the region’s fisheries and other aquatic resources for the economic and social benefits of the current and future population of the region”. The CRFM consists of three bodies – the Ministerial Council, the Caribbean Fisheries Forum and the CRFM Secretariat.

The Ministerial Council is the highest decision making body of the CRFM, and is responsible for formulating the policy of the Mechanism. It is comprised of the Ministers responsible for Fisheries in each Member State. Among other things, the Ministerial Council is responsible for receiving and considering policy proposals from the Forum; promoting the efficient management, conservation and development of shared highly migratory marine and other aquatic resources of the Caribbean Region through attainment of competence over the resources and through co-operation with the relevant competent organizations; and submitting annual reports to the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) and the Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR).

At the conclusion of the meeting, it is expected that the Ministers will review and adopt the recommendations of the recently held Seventeenth Meeting of the Caribbean Fisheries Forum. Some of these recommendations include measures for boosting production in the fisheries and aquaculture sector, risk insurance for fisheries, ongoing challenges to fisheries subsidies, gender mainstreaming, and the development of critical fishery management plans.

The incoming Chairman of the CRFM is the Minister of Agriculture of St. Kitts/Nevis, the Eugene Hamilton, and the outgoing Chairman was the David Osborne, Minister of Agriculture of Montserrat, who, unfortunately, is hospitalized in the USA and was unable the attend. The meeting expressed its empathy and prayers for his swift recovery.