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In a pool at Portland, Jamaica, near the Rio Grande, two fishermen search for giant shrimp. (Oscar Hidalgo for The New York Times) In remote Jamaican valley, a grim redefinition of 'fishing'
By Marc Lacey
Published: February 15, 2008
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RIO GRANDE VALLEY, Jamaica: Catching freshwater shrimp in the legendary Rio Grande here in the forested hills of eastern Jamaica used to be done at night with a homemade bamboo torch in one hand and a sharp spear in the other.
Wave the flame low over the water and the shrimp eyes glow. Aim the spear with a steady hand and throw. It is painstaking work. The results, though, are worth the effort — succulent shrimp, known locally as janga, that can be the size of lobsters.
Elders recall going down to the river just before dinnertime and plucking out as many shrimp as were needed that evening. The creatures were thrown in a pot with coconut milk, tomatoes and plenty of spice. The smell alone would bring the children to the table.
But those days are fading. Shrimp are getting harder to find on the Rio Grande, and those who live by its banks now eat more chicken and goat. When they do eat the shrimp, they must inspect them carefully inside and out for signs of poison.
Man's destruction of the natural world takes many shocking forms. Poachers gun down elephants for the ivory and leave the carcasses to rot. Illegal foresters slash the trees of the rain forests for a quick buck. And in the Blue Mountains and John Crow Mountains here, people go fishing by dumping poison in the Rio Grande.Any toxin will do. Some favor the pesticide used to keep insects off the coffee plants. Others use the potent solution used to rid cows of ticks. When subjected to the poison, the shrimp — large and small — float right to the top. So do the fish. Catching them is as easy as scooping them up before the river washes them and the poison away.
"You have to put all morals and conscience aside, and then you throw a toxic pesticide in the river," said Kimberly John of the Nature Conservancy, which is leading an effort to stop what it considers the principal threat to the ecosystem. "It's a very cold, hard reality to put poison in the river, and whatever jumps out, you catch."
Economics is driving the practice, experts and river poisoners themselves say.
"You can get 10 pounds of janga in two hours," said Carlton Walker, a 42-year-old fisherman. He has been caught twice poisoning the Rio Grande. Wading in the water recently, he showed how he would scoop the poisoned janga like mad and make as much as $50 in no time at all. "It's quick money," he said.
Residents are now rising up against the practice, however, joining an antipoisoning campaign that is aimed at keeping offenders from going to market with their catches and sending them to jail instead.
Educating local judges on the detrimental effects of the practice has been important. Walker was released the first time he was caught poisoning the river. Even the second time, he only had to perform community service. He now declares himself reformed.
Marva Smith Moodie, a park ranger, said only a handful of poisoners had been caught, usually with both the chemicals and large hauls of shrimp in their possession. "They know it's wrong, so they try to elude the law," she said. "They want an easy way out. They're not thinking."
She said more river patrols and a mobilized local population were the keys to saving the river, which is popular among tourists who float down it on bamboo rafts.
Besides poison, Moodie said, some unscrupulous fishermen throw dynamite into the river and then scoop up the fish and shrimp that are blasted out of the water.
The effects of such practices are becoming more apparent every day.
"Look, there's no fish here," said Cecil Beckford, a fisherman, as he scanned the river. "When I was a boy, you'd find fish everywhere. Now, look. Nothing."
Local residents also complain of more and more cases of diarrhea, stomachaches and vomiting, which they attribute to poisons from the river, ingested in food and drinking water.
"I was on my death bed," said Robert Wilson, a local banana farmer who said he became gravely ill after buying some tainted shrimp from two young men who passed by his hillside home last fall. "My skin started to scratch me. When I got up from the bed, I was stumbling. Praise God, I lived."
Wilson said he inspected the shrimp before he bought them and saw that many of them had gashes in their shells, a sign that they were caught by spear. But he now figures that the poisoners simply faked those holes to fool him.
Walker, who fished with poison for a decade before he was caught, said he ate some of his catch, sure that the toxins had been washed away by the river. But experts say the extent of the health effects remains unknown, as the shellfish make their way to area homes, markets and restaurants.
Many of the communities along the Rio Grande are populated by descendants of the Maroons, who fled into the wilderness to escape slavery as far back as the 1600s and battled the British from the hills. They are fiercely independent and cling to tradition. Their ailing river haunts them.
"My fear is that the food that we depend on, that is part of our cultural tradition, will die," said Linette Wilkins, a member of a conservation group in the valley. "To think that children some generations down the road will have no idea what a janga or a crayfish looks like...."
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