Funding Agency: University of the West Indies (UWI)

Jamaica’s reefs are some of the most heavily exploited fishing areas in the entire Caribbean. Catch composition has shifted from larger, valuable species towards smaller, less valuable "trash" species. Since the 1980’s, south coast diving fishers have suffered increasingly from the symptoms (extreme pain, paralysis, death) of Decompression Illness (the Bends) and Burst Lung. These injuries result from increased fishing effort (more dives and longer times spent at greater depths) to compensate for the shortage of shallow water fish, lobster and conch.

What remains unknown is 

• the actual dive profiles causing these injuries 
• the actual numbers of fishers affected i.e the households which have lost their primary wage earners while being faced with increased medical expenses 
• the status of the present fish stock exploited by these fishers 

This project seeks to develop Best Practice Strategies for the safe and sustainable exploitation of fishery resources by diving fishermen via 

• a limited assessment of  fish stocks at south coast fishing centres 
• determining the fishing effort exerted by diving fishers in these areas 
• determining the conditions (number of excursions, depth & time) of the dives that cause Decompression Illness in the population of diving fishers 
• a decompression illness risk assessment (by percent) of the dive profile data from the dives being carried out to harvest these resources 
• surveying the families of diving fishers regarding the effect of loss of income and additional health care costs on the wider community 
• public Education workshops to communicate these results of above investigations to local fishers