Booming Harvest Leaves Conch Industry Scrambling

Belize’s conch industry has gone from protecting supply to managing abundance. Government shortened the last harvesting season to help stocks recover, and early reports suggest the move worked. Acting Fisheries Administrator Adriel Castanedas says the latest harvest has been so strong that some processing plants are already full. Now, the industry faces a very different challenge: finding enough buyers for all that conch.

 

Adriel Castanedas, Acting Fisheries Administrator

“What we’ve been gathering with the conch season is that there’s an overproduction. Most of the processing plants have voluntarily stopped because they’re full. So we’re in the process of signing documents so that they can be exported. I think it’s a good sign that while it was shortened the last season, it’s being productive now. So it’s reaping the benefits of that. I do want to say that the fishers must also be conscious that while they can harvest as much within the season and within the quota, they also have to be cognizant that there’s a limit in terms of what they can process. And what we don’t want is for that to reach there and spoil because then that’s a loss for everybody, including the actual resource.”

 

The Belize Fisheries Department closed the Queen Conch fishing season this year on May 25, more than a month before the traditional June 30 end date.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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