this week.

The Hon. Tim Smith said: "The lifting of the ban would be exceedingly premature.'' Mr. Smith was reacting to a demand from Shadow Environment Minister Leon (Jimmy) Williams for a review of the ban, implemented more than five years ago.

Mr. Williams said that if fish stocks could be proved to have increased, the fishpot ban could be lifted, although appropriate safeguards and limited sizes should be imposed.

And he called for specialist scientific advice to be taken by the Government to establish the exact recovery of the fishing areas around the Island.

But Mr. Smith said: "The situation is monitored on a central basis as fishermen submit their catches. At the end of each year, we take the statistics and review them.'' And he added the figures made grim reading -- there is a declining grouper population, although there have been "small signs of recovery'' in snapper stocks.

The parrotfish, which is a protected species, is also showing little signs of recovery.

Mr. Smith added: "Mr. Williams gave the impression people weren't doing their jobs -- but the numbers are monitored very carefully.

"To suggest we have a review after five years is irrelevant. Everything is monitored monthly and we keep a very close eye on the trends.'' And Mr. Smith said that the fishpot ban may well become a permanent fixture in Bermuda.

He said: "The monitoring will continue, but we believe that the use of fishpots may be too aggressive a method.'' But he said that other methods of fishing, including linking up with foreign ships further out to sea than Bermudian fisherman traditionally went, could be considered to give the industry a boost.