As many of you may know, I am an avid angler who enjoys fishing both deep sea as well as fishing the numerous inshore islands with a small panga here in the gulf of Chiriqui. I was born here in Panama in 1954 and my father fished these same waters in 1952 through 1955 when he was stationed here in the ARMY. Now my children fish these waters and enjoy the same thrill that I do. You can see it in their faces an it is a bonding that lasts a lifetime.
Our waters here in the prime fishing areas of the Gulf of Chiriqui are under a lot of pressure from long line boats and commercial fisherman including some horrendous reports of commercial spear fishermen taking thousands of pounds of snapper from the rocks daily. I have seen the waters off of both the east and west coast of Florida go from prime fisheries to dead zones because of the same commercial fishing pressure during the time frame of 1972 to 1985. With the banning of long liners and gill netters I also saw the fishery recover, albeit to a fraction of the level it was when I first fished the waters in 1971. We are at the tipping point here in Panama and these issues need to be addressed. We will need a balanced approach to achieve a sustainable fishery or we will all loose. Also, tourism is the future of Panama and the recreational fishing industry brings in billions of dollars in revenue with much more to come in the future. Our fishermen come from around the world and can choose to come or not to come here.
Last week I attended the first meeting of it’s kind here in Chiriqui. This meeting was intended to setup a foundation comprising of various marine users such as sport fishing and diving resorts, marina operators, end users etc in order to help protect the marine resources in Panama.
Our Mission Statement
“To bring together, in a pro-active way, marine related business. Our goal is to increase and improve awareness and sustainability of our marine resources within Panama and globally”.
As my good friend John Maynard said, I want to make sure that my children and my children’s children enjoy our precious resource here in Panama.
We are serious about our intentions and we would like to hear from any of you out there who might want to lend support to this cause.
I am an avid angler and I “approve of this message”. Please let me know if you do too.
Tom,
I’m with you, it is essential Panama secures ALL of it’s coastline waters and PROTECTS the marine life there. I live in the UK and saw the decimation of our coastal fishing waters from 1980 onwards, now there are little or no decent sized fish stocks around at all, fishing boats either cut up or used for private use (not fishing) and the fishermen themselves living on Social Security…. not good.
Am hoping to move to Panama this year (2012) and would be delighted to help / assist in any way possible.
Regards,
davidh