LAVENTILLE, Trinidad (CANARI) -- The Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) recently received a €1,032,099 grant from the European Union, via its EuropeAid programme, to improve the contribution of the small scale fisheries sector to food security in the Caribbean.

This will be achieved through building the capacity of regional and national fisherfolk organisation networks to participate in fisheries governance and management.

The four-year project covers fisherfolk working across the Caribbean, including in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Building the capacity of the fisheries sector is critical to address the region’s growing concern with food and nutrition security. Since 2005, the Caribbean has recorded food import bills of more than €3.5 billion and rising food prices have compounded this challenge.

The fisheries sector in the CARICOM/CARIFORUM region employs over 182,000 persons, directly or indirectly. These are mostly small-scale fisherfolk from rural communities who lack other income earning opportunities. The fisheries sector is therefore especially important to these rural communities which usually exhibit a higher percentage of poverty than the national average.

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