Marine reserves are areas which have been closed to fishing.
They lie at the heart of the bold and timely effort to manage St. Lucia's valuable coastal reefs which the SMMA represents. What has been overlooked is that the SMMA and its marine reserves were set up to help those fishermen. The primary purpose of marine reserves is to help rehabilitate Soufriere's fishing industry. At the time the SMMA was established fish stocks were at an all-time low and among the most severely overfished in the Caribbean. The large and valuable snappers and groupers which once filled fish pots were long gone.