The practices should also make the industry more resilient to new challenges, such as climate change, and protect its rich marine biodiversityHavana — In the sleepy Cuban fishing village of Cojímar that inspired Ernest Hemingway’sCuba’s fish stocks have dropped drastically in recent decades due to over-fishing and environmental factors, scientists say, prompting the country to pass a law last month imposing new regulations on the fishing industry.
The decline has been a blow to the fishing industry, which has already suffered the dismantling of its long-range state fishing fleet because it could not maintain it in the wake of the collapse of Cuba’s former benefactor, the Soviet Union. The new fishing policy aims to at least recover domestic stocks by curbing illegal fishing and implementing science-based fisheries management using catch quotas and zoning.
It also finally offers legal recognition — and therefore benefits such as a state pension — to Cuba’s 18,638 private commercial fishermen, although it does not address some of their most pressing concerns.