ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada - Grenada's government says it will amend the existing fishing legislation, increasing also the penalty as the island seeks to comply with measures outlined by the United States government.
The Dickon Mitchell administration will bring to Parliament on Wednesday, a section amending the Fisheries Act to establish the observer and monitoring system to improve the effectiveness of the legislation and increasing the penalty up to EC$100,000 or 12-month imprisonment.
The amendment is intended to get Grenada become compliant to export fish and fish product to the US market. In August this year, the US announced it would ban fish imports from the island starting January 1, 2026, because of the failure to comply with the US Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) by not providing a comparability finding.
In September , the Ministry of Marine Affairs said that it was working collaboratively with stakeholders, legal experts, and partners to restore access to the US seafood market in 2026 and to uphold Grenada’s reputation for responsible marine stewardship.
According to the amendment, the Chief Fisheries Officer shall establish, plan and manage an observer and monitoring programme for the purpose of collecting and reporting reliable and accurate information for scientific, management and compliance purposes.
“For the purposes of this section, an observer shall exercise scientific, monitoring and any other relevant functions that may be on a fishing vessel or facility related to fisheries that have been granted a licence, permit or authorisation under this Act,” according to the proposed legislation.
“Additionally, this amendment inserts a new subsection (4) to empower the Minister to create offences in the regulations to which penalties can be imposed. However, the penalties prescribed by the regulations cannot be greater than a fine of EC$100,000 and imprisonment for 12 months.”
When the ban goes into effect, a significant number of people in the fishing industry are expected to be negatively affected.
Data from the Ministry of Finance indicated that during the first quarter of this year, there was an increase of one per cent in the export of fish to the United States. The revenue from the fishing industry is more than EC$50 million annually.
