Plenty more flying fish in the sea? Tobago's fears as Bajan boats move in

[malaise]

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/jan/09/caribbean-fishing-dispute-trinidad-tobago-barbados-flying-fish-sustainability

Andel Daniel has been fishing in Trinidad and Tobago’s territorial waters for more than 30 years. During that time, he has seen a significant drop in the number of flying fish within his patch of the Caribbean Sea.

Cleaning his catch on the quayside of Buccoo after an early morning fishing trip, he blames the shortage on fishing boats from Barbados and Venezuela moving into Tobago’s waters.

“What one Bajan boat can carry, it would take 10 Tobago boats to carry,” says Daniel, using the Caribbean term for Barbadians as he warns of what he considers their unsustainable practices.

A heavily set black man cleans fish on a dockside
Andel Daniel cleans his catch at Buccoo. ‘Our fishing practices in Tobago are sustainable and don’t kill the fishing grounds,’ he says. Photograph: Clement Williams
“Barbadian fishers freeze their catch while at sea and return to Barbados only when they are full,” he says, referring to the flying fish season from November to July. “Our fishing practices in Tobago are sustainable and don’t kill the fishing grounds.”

Complaints from Daniel and others like him are increasingly frequent in Trinidad and Tobago and have fuelled a dispute that has persisted for more than 50 years. In the 1970s, the two countries began negotiating agreements on oil and gas exploitation and their respective territorial waters and exclusive economic zones (EEZ), which extend farther.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Boats that speak creole?

Or crews that speak creole?

Bajan Creole
Language

Bajan, or Bajan Dialect, is an English-based creole language with African and British influences spoken on the Caribbean island of Barbados. Bajan is primarily a spoken language, meaning that in general, standard English is used in print, in the media, in the judicial system, in government, and in day-to-day business, while Bajan is reserved for less formal situations, in music, or in social commentary. Ethnologue reports that, as of 2018, 30,000 Barbadians were native English speakers, while 260,000 natively spoke Bajan.

Wikipedia

[malaise]

2. Clearly the crews

The. vast majority of Caribbean people speak their own or a shared dialect/language.
Many many folks are not bilingual and struggle with standard English. French creole has a strong presence starting with Haiti, Dominica, St. Lucia and to a lesser extent with Grenada and T&T.
All are influenced by African languages as well as the dominant colonial power/powers.
What many don’t know is that there is also the heavy influence of Irish, Scottish as well as English Cockney.
The Queen’s English is.spoken by very few people day to day.

There is a real problem. How do you have teachers supposedly teaching English when they themselves don’t speak it at home.

When I taught voluntary English classes, I taught English as a foreign language and we had excellent results. We just fool ourselves that we speak English. The kids were comfortable and had a blast switching languages.
By the way, Bajan is not merely a language, it is what all Caribbean call Barbadian citizens. He/she is Bajan.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. It seemed the Guardian writer had transferred Bajan from a language to a nationality

I was experiencing cognitive dissonance.

The excerpt was murky about it, but your last point clears it up.

Cheers for language teachers. Language facility is essential for thought and the more languages one has, the broader one's thinking is.

[malaise]

4. No the writer is correct it is both but it is used much more often

as nationality. I just called one of my close friends, a Bajan married to a Jamaican. She agreed with me that they tend to say Bajan creole and she’s a language expert.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Never saw a photo of a flying fish until a moment ago. Wonderful! Amazing beasties. Thank you.

[malaise]

6. No one can cook it like a Bajan

😀