Carlos Arevalo of Chunox Village Named Fisher of the Year

The Wildlife Conservation Society held its 2024 Fisher of the Year Award ceremony today. This year’s winner, Carlos Arevalo, hails from Chunox Village in Corozal District and the two outstanding fishers are sisters Paula and Suzette Jacobs from Punta Negra Village in Toledo District. News Five’s Britney Gordon attended the award ceremony to meet the recipients of these coveted titles. Here’s more on that.

 

Carlos Arevalo, Fisherman of the Year

“And like, somebody told me, in my veins is not only blood, it’s Belize waters. I have that in my veins also.”

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

Carlos Arevalo has been fishing since he was a child. Having moved to the fishing community of Chunox after the death of his father, Arevalo saw firsthand how the men used fishing to provide for their families and dreamt of doing the same for his mother and sisters.

 

Carlos Arevalo

“And those time they, well, you have to have eighteen years old to go to fish. Well, one time I escaped from my mother with my uncle begging him to carry me at sea. And he carried me to the sea. And it was something that surprised me at the beginning. One time it makes me get in love of the sea and from right there my career from fisherman began. So my mother said you will not go to the sea again. I will say, one day I would be eighteen years old and I will go to the sea. When I was eighteen years old I gone to the sea and from since then I’m working like a fisherman and I get engaged in other organization and I love it.”

 

 

Arevalo was nominated for the Fisher of the Year award by his son, Amisai Arevalo, whose love for fishing has been nurtured by his father his entire life. He says that the nomination took him completely by surprise.

 

Carlos Arevalo

“For me it was a surprise. Yesterday he told me, father, we have a meeting. It is an important meeting. You have to be there because they called me to the meeting and they said they want you there. I don’t know what is happening, but it is a surprise. When I say service, I think it’s a meeting. he say, we have to go. He tell my mother will come with us. He said I think something strange here is happening. I don’t know what is happening. When I came here and I see that it’s about the nomination, so I say, I think those guys nominate me without me knowing nothing.”

 

 

Arevalo is proud to be representing the fishermen of the north and is grateful to the Wildlife Conservation Society for recognizing his hard work, as well as the efforts of fellow nominees.  Also recognized at the ceremony were siblings Suzette and Paula Jacobs, who won Outstanding Fisher Awards. Paula Jacobs-Williams, who accepted on behalf of her sister, says that fishing has always been a bonding experience between them.

 

Paula Jacobs-Williams, Outstanding Fisher

“She’s more like the captain and the head one and I am more like the caretaker and the cook and we partnership together.”

 

Reporter

“How long have you guys been fisherwomen?”

 

 

 

Paula Jacobs-Williams

 “I always say I’ve been fishing from in my mom belly, but from we were pretty young like I would say two, three years old.”

 

 

 

 

 

Jacobs-Williams was recently elected Chairwoman of the Women in Fisheries Association. She explains that being recognized as an outstanding fisher speaks to her dedication to representing women in fisheries.

 

Paula Jacobs

“The thing is that this recognition show us that we have been doing job. And one day, we have proved that our job are work and know. The world can see that we are continuing to advocate for women in fisheries. Not only just the fishing and the thing, but we want the woman to be in it and the younger girls, we want them to come out and start to the thing name and we are fighting that we get been at the end of it. We got some kind of retirement scheme for the women and men in fisheries.”

 

Britney Gordon for News Five.