Rescue centre among initiatives to target illegal fishing

Minister of Public Utilities and Aviation, Deodat Indar on Sunday said a new Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre, and expanded naval capabilities are part of a growing effort to combat illegal fishing.

At the time, the minister was addressing the fifth Regional Meeting of Directors and Heads of Maritime Administration. He said that the scale of the challenge is significant and demands a global response.

“Guyana, like many other Caribbean countries, must guard against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing beyond our economic zones.

“This is not a community problem or a country problem. This is not just a regional problem. It is a global problem. It requires a global response,” he said.

For Guyana, the immediate response involves the global navigation satellite system buoy deployed approximately 17 nautical miles off the country’s coast.

“This buoy gathers data from various sensors and transmits it to MARAD and to other local and international bodies,” he said.

It gives Guyana something it has long lacked, its own live picture of activity in the waters it is responsible for protecting.

Complementing that effort, MARAD is set to commission a Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) built to international standards. It will be operated with modern, internationally compliant equipment and is designed to coordinate search and rescue responses across Guyana’s maritime zone, a stretch of ocean that has grown in strategic importance as offshore oil production expands deep into the Stabroek Block, with vessels and platforms now operating well over 100 nautical miles from shore.

The infrastructure push comes as Guyana’s maritime responsibilities have expanded considerably.

“Our government has invested over six billion Guyanese dollars into dredging the Demerara Channel. That is to ensure that we have larger ships moving through the channel,” he said.

Addressing the wider regional picture, Indar pointed to disruptions at global chokepoints, the Suez Canal, Rotterdam, and other major arteries, as a reminder that Caribbean states cannot afford to treat maritime governance as a secondary concern.