Fisheries authority concerns about fish project

THE Morobe Fisheries Management Authority has raised concerns on the sustainability of a proposed fish cage project along the Labu Lagoon in the Huon Gulf.
It also has doubts about the sustainability and fisheries expertise of a non-governmental organisation that has been appointed to manage and implement the project.
The proposed project is part of the remuneration to the Labu villages that would be affected by the Lae port development project.
The Japanese fund for poverty and rejection was engaged by the Asian Development Bank to fund the particular project.
Morobe Fisheries chairman Frank Pologo said the Morobe provincial administration and the Independent Public Business Corporation engaged a non-governmental organisation to carry out the project.
Mr Pologo said in fish cage fisheries, fingerlings were confined in cages, raised and then harvested.
Serious consideration had to be taken before such a project would be undertaken, fisheries project officer John Joseph added.
Mr Joseph said the project would have to identify ways it would breed the fish in terms of providing continuous feed.
He said a similar project that was set up in Madang a few years ago had ceased because of feed’s high input cost.
Mr Joseph said with this mind, they were skeptical about the project and believed that the provincial administration should reconsider its decision.