Catch and release for next-gen fishers

CAPTAIN’S CORNER BY CAPTAIN MAHMOOD AL MAHMOOD

A few years ago, when speaking to a primary school principal, he told me that the children who are in Class One today would enter a completely changed workplace in their twenties.

That is understandable, given the rate of change and uptake of electronic and digitized tools used. What surprises me is that the change is already visible today just a couple of years after the conversation.

That educationist told me that nearly 60% of the careers we have today will no longer be relevant and be replaced with new ones that don’t even exist today. Yes, like the old-time letter-writers who read and wrote letters for illiterate villagers in olden days.

Today, Bahrain boasts 100% literacy and, in any case, the smart phone and video calls means we no longer write letters – even if we do, they are emailed. By the same to - ken we have game developers for the growing video game industry – a career that sprang to life in the early 2000s.

Nowadays we even have game coaches – people who will teach you to ace your preferred video game with four or five coaching sessions and help update your skills when the next version hits the screens.

On a more serious note, thousands of scientists and astrophysicists are employed in unravelling the mysteries of the universe – a career path limited to a chosen few till the 20th century.

Even in the GCC, countries have set up space agencies and are sending their youth to training camps to understand the joys and risks of a career that involves going into outer space.

I was thinking of all this when I read the call by MPs to implement a law to nurture a new generation of fishermen among our youth who can take forward generations of hard-won fishing knowledge.

It is commendable indeed but fishing too has changed.

We have powerful motorized fishing fleets, wider nets that can trawl the bottom of the sea and catch more fish.

The fishing boats have freezers which help keep the catch fresh till they reach the market. What we need to do in order to pass on the true knowledge of fishing and the marine environment is teach the new generation to respect the sea.

We must not overfish, we must not use damaging deep sea nets that catch marine life other than the fish we can consume.

We must not pollute our seas by dumping sewage or oil, thereby saving our fish also. These lessons are far more important and are embedded in our Bahraini marine heritage. Let us respect our seas and pass that knowledge to our next gen.