Sustainable coastal development: The role of fish sanctuaries in The Caribbean| Jamaica

On the morning of April 7, 2018, a cohort from the University of the West Indies, Mona, made a well received visit to the Oracabessa Bay Fishing Sanctuary. We were met by Mr. Inilek Wilmot whom introduced us to the essential concepts surrounding the community initiative.

This building situates at this time, the operations' main office. It is complete with solar and wind powered energy and was donated with the full complement of a well equipped interior, providing the community with adequate capability and flexibility in organizing it's efforts.

What we then discovered was an amazing grass roots rationale which has caught the support of both the private and the governmental delegates. A combination of social and economic factors eg. stereotypical notions about low income communities have made it difficult for the community to illicit the required response however, since obtaining aid from the government in 2011 it has collectively aimed to properly appropriate funds received through various grants from a variety of foundation and groups. It was one of about twelve sanctuaries established with the aid of the government that year and started out as a partnership between the St.Mary's fishermen cooperative and the Oracabessa Foundation. Both of these organizations have now joined resources to form the Oracabessa Marine Trust. This foundation maintains three representatives from the fishermen cooperative and three members from the Oracabessa foundation. The Oracabessa Bay fishing sanctuary has been gaining support and has maintained it's foundation within the community. 

The aim of the community is to respond and adapt to the impending effects of climate change. This includes food security due to factors including temperature and sea level rise, changes in salinity and pH and the responding coral death, unpredictable weather and declines in fish stock. These factors are also immediately juxtaposed with social and economic realities. 

Much of Jamaica's coastline is owned by large Hotelier companies which often act with impunity regarding the maintenance of the pristine balance of the nature of our global ecosphere. These hotels are often flanked by fishing villages which are often impacted greatly by the proximities of these establishments and may often be a major source in the destruction of fish and coral numbers. Unemployment and a lack of education is not uncommon and often fishing is practiced as a last resort in order to stem poverty and hunger. This has led to desperate overfishing, further compounding the problem posed by the climatic riddle. 

Efforts such as those ripe at the Oracabessa Bay Fishing sanctuary are keenly aimed at addressing these very issues by using a sustainable developmental approach. The Oracabessa Bay Fishing Sanctuary is a marine protected area under the fishing industry act and is different from a marine park or reserve in that a part of the effort within the marine sanctuary is to provide a sustainable product in the form of home grown fish,a natural and renewable resource.

The fish sanctuary has been enacted as a strategy aimed at capitalizing on the reproductive capacity of specified populations of species of fish. The population is held at a place where is exhibits maximum growth relative to it's available space and food.  According to Mr. Wilmot, the sanctuary has achieved exponential results since 2011. This he says is achieved by "good science" as it relates to monitoring the number of fish caught and the number of fish remaining per anum. All of this however relies on the willingness of the fishermen to relay accurate details and on the accuracy and precision of methods used to conduct stock surveys. Other conservation strategies include size restrictions on the meshes used to snare fishes. The use of instruments like spear guns may also be restricted. All of this is done within a specially marked area within the bay, along which fisher men place their nets and meshes, specially marked with floating bottles. The main goal of the fisheries is to maintain or improve stock biodiversity and numbers by protecting a section of the environment attuned with the species' reproductive capacities.  

 A number of efforts have been put in place to ensure the protection of not only fish stock but also turtle population, which has been closely monitored by one Mel Tennant since 2006 and has since released over 25'000 young back into the ocean by the end of 2015. The government has also kept a very close eye on conch stocks over by the Pedro cays. They have enforced a regular on and off season for hunting, a practice which has been mirrored by the Oracabessa Foundation within the Bay's sanctuary area.

In addition to these major maturations, the private sector in harmony with the strong community leadership shown by the Oracabessa bay fishing community has been able to procure among incentives, technological tools which have already begun to change the ways in which ordinary folk monitor and take care of their niche.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

To improve the living conditions of those alive today without negatively impacting future generations. Sustainable development will involve:

• Social Progress: equal opportunities, the best version of ourselves; mobility
• Economic Achievement: Acute awareness of our manufacturing chains raw materials and processes 
• Balanced wholistic natural systems: Healthy and diversifying ecosystems. 

The Anthropocene tells of a period in human history where our choices have resulted in a global state that is responsive to all our actions, in a way where we can no longer ignore the implications of our many proclivities.
Newton's first  law of inertia discourages sudden, large scale changes within a closed system or cycle. In time, energy transforms and ripples across from person to person, from the worlds of our minds and into the emerging mind of the world, which we have designated as: the apparent, the responsive, the ever constant shifting; 'real world'. When that law of motion is tested, the result is most likely, the extensive release of sudden energy and often cataclysmic change. Our role here has been defined by our awareness and actions within the communities among which find ourselves.
In 2016, scientists gathered to discuss the global catalysis that had been taking place since the end of the last ice age over 10,000 years ago, where glaciers might had grown as far as Chicago in the state of Illinois. They had come to decision that due to the magnitude of the growing human impacts on the environment, that we had historically entered a new period in geological time and that the true mark of the transition had been the release of the atomic bomb in 1950.
In today's economy, developing countries are supplying the economies of more industrialized countries across the globe in order to supply a growing population and a growing demand within a more urbanized setting. The expanding population of our species are just as impactful as our bad habits. Features of this global expansion has so far included the improper disposal of waste in addition to the generation of large quantities of hazardous materials. This kind of behaviour is comparable to a ruptured major blood vessel in that we have only a short time to diagnose the problem and implement necessary recovery techniques.

Oracabessa Bay fishing Sanctuary, St. Mary

Oraccabessa Bay Fishing Sanctuary, accross from the Santa Maria Island

http://www.oracabessafishsanctuary.org/