fisherman has charged.

And fishermen could be driven to suicide, or even murder, Mr. Allan Bean Sr.

told The Royal Gazette .

Mr. Bean said he recently attended the funerals of two fishermen in one week, and he said both deaths were partly due to the stress of the business since the fish pot ban was imposed.

"They can't take it anymore. They were desperate,'' Mr. Bean said of the fishermen.

"None of us right now is making a decent living,'' he said. "There is going to be some trouble here unless someone stops us by sitting down and using some common sense.

"There have been plans to even commit murder about it, as well as suicide.'' Asked to elaborate, Mr. Bean said he had heard talk of murder from two fishermen, whom he would not name.

"One told a group of us if he could have got his hands on a gun he'd have killed a few people.'' Another said "certain people need their heads blown off'', he said.

"Something has to be done. Otherwise, we might have some trouble that this Island has never seen before.'' Government's fish pot ban was imposed on March 31, 1990. On November 19 this year, the Court of Appeal rejected an argument by fisherman Mr. Danny Farias that the ban was unconstitutional.

Mr. Bean, whose fishing business with his two sons is one of the Island's biggest, said he had held his tongue until now, but "fishermen are fed up with being abused''.

He has fished in Bermuda for 33 years and in January is due in court to face charges of illegally using fish pots. The alleged offences occurred soon after the ban was imposed.

Since the ban, fishermen were "risking their lives in all kinds of bad weather, just to try to eke out a living''.

The compensation Government paid fishermen after it banned fish pots was inadequate, he said. The maximum payment allowed was $75,000, and most of the top fishermen were offered $10,000 to $30,000 -- nowhere near the values of their lost businesses, he said.

Mr. Bean said Government banned fish pots not because of concerns over dwindling fish stocks, but because the Department of Fisheries was unable to control abuse of pots by a handful of fishermen.

Fishermen were the ones who fought for controls against depletion of fish stocks, and by 1990 had persuaded Government to decrease the number of people allowed to use fish pots to 72 from 300 a few years earlier, he said.

But there were a few fishermen using far more pots than they were allowed, he said. The Fisheries Department knew who they were, but felt unable to stop them. "Even with five fish wardens, they could not find and prosecute the fellows who were breaking the law.

Fishermen tried repeatedly to meet with former Environment Minister the Hon.

Ann Cartwright DeCouto to discuss the ban, but "she completely refused,'' he said.

Those who sat on a Government inquiry into the ban were not neutral, and witnesses were allowed to give in-camera testimony against fish pots that fishermen never heard and were unable to answer, he said.

And pollution played a major role in depletion of area fish stocks.

The Hungry Bay sewage outfall had to "have a detrimental effect on the marine life''..'' And the sinking of a ship carrying thousands of tons of fertiliser in 1981 meant area stocks of several fish species "were completely wiped out'', though there had been partial recovery since, he said.

"I was getting the groupers every year until the ship went down,'' off St.

David's, he said. After that, "nothing''.

Because the Government did not declare a fish pot amnesty, pots set illegally were left at sea and continued to kill fish, he said.

Responding to Mr. Bean's claims, Fisheries Director Mr. John Barnes said fishermen who died recently were well on in years.

Fishermen were eligible for equipment rebates in addition to the payments of up to $75,000 for lost revenues, he said. And those with licences were not being banned from fishing, as had happened in some countries. Only the method of fishing was being controlled.

As for the motive for the fish pot ban, Mr. Barnes said the number of illegal pots "did get out of hand,'' and "a better job probably could have been done'' of policing.

But reef fish stocks were the main concern, and fishermen were requiring more equipment to harvest the same number of fish, he said.

"The marine resource belongs to a lot more than 72 fishermen. There was a lot of pressure from other quarters to limit the harvest.

"The reef ecology is very poorly understood. You don't know how far you can push the natural system before you end up with something you really don't want. The indications were that that situation was being approached.'' Mrs. DeCouto did meet with the fishermen, though she did not recognise the newly-formed fishermen's division of the Bermuda Industrial Union as their bargaining agent.

Mr. Barnes said the Inquiry members were respected experts from abroad, and both public and private sessions were held. The private sessions were mainly intended to let Fisheries workers testify without fear of job reprisals, he said.

As for pollution, sewage outfalls resulted in "local deleterious effects'' only. As for the fertiliser ship that sunk "well off the platform,...it would be my opinion that you wouldn't be able to find a trace of it within a half a mile,'' he said. The Commission of Inquiry found pollution did not play a major role in declining fish stocks.

"There is more pollution now than there was three years ago, and there are more fish,'' he said.