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Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) is imploring Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to deal with destructive illegal trawlers on the North Coast.

In a media release on December 12, FFOS said, "Every law must be obeyed, yet year after year, the same environmental crimes are replayed on the North Coast, leaving our communities impoverished. We are begging our Government to act as decisively as they have on fireworks.

"Shrimp trawlers, dragging massive tickler chains, scrape and massacre the seabed, destroying our marine life. It has been likened to dynamite fishing in terms of sustainability by the World Resources Institute in Washington. Juvenile species are wasted as measured by-catch of 14.7 pounds of marine life is destroyed for every pound of shrimp landed."