Factory ships have been accused of discarding excessive amounts of fish. (Photo: Stock File)

Greenpeace report makes Internet rounds, criticises govt handling of fisheries

ARGENTINA
Thursday, October 01, 2009, 16:40 (GMT + 9)

A chain email is circulating among the citizens of Argentina that seriously questions the stance of the national government with respect to fisheries ordinance and the treatment of seafood resources, an indispensable raw material for the food security of the country.

The email features a report authored by Alicia Jardel, collaborating professor for Investig'Action Belgium, who begins censuring the “disastrous idea” of the Argentine Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock and Fishing “of withdrawing inspectors who board fishing boats and fresh fish vessels that target shrimp, exchanging them for mere 'observers,' with an almost null policing power.”

Two other “unfortunate situations” compound that fact. First of all, the arrival of “highly depredatory” deep freezer vessels of large Spanish companies that emigrated to Argentina after they were expelled from the seas of the then-European Economic Community.

Secondly, it mentions that in the 1990s, provincial authorities of Santa Cruz and Chubut “completed the circle” in allowing foreign factory ships to toss fish they were not targeting.

As factory ships that target shrimp (Pleoticus muelleri), they are only interested in shrimp because of its international price -- they discard major amounts of common hake (Merluccius hubbsi), dogfish, cod, ray and salmon that get caught in their nets.

The species are returned to sea, often dead -- such as hake -- without being used to feed thousands of Argentine citizens.

According to the researcher, about 100 boats of 40 and 50 meters in length throw about 10,000 kilos of hake into the sea daily.

That is, a million kilos of fish per day are unused in Argentina given the inaction and passivity of fishing authorities.

Although the maritime depredation was denounced on several opportunities by sailors that are not members of the United Maritime Workers Syndicate (SOMU), the central government and the governors of the provinces of Santa Cruz and Chubut continue to avoid addressing the situation, Jardel says.

She affirms that the same is happening with fishing executives, who prefer not to hire personnel of Argentine origin onboard, choosing Peruvians or Bolivians, who do not complain about the depredation of the continental platform.

Jardel mentioned that Argentine politicians only decided to lower income taxes so that fishing industralists would earn more and stop protesting.

The country’s panorama is worsening still since the discarded resources serve as food for albatross and seagulls, which have reproduced excessively.

According to the biologists of the Patagonic Environmental Studies Centre (CENPAT), the penguins of Punta Tombo, Chubut, must compete for food with these Patagonian birds, which have multiplied by 100 per cent since 1990.

On the issue, foreign scientists who analysed the multiplication of seagulls and albatrosses indicated with resignation: “The cause of a similar mutation in the bird population is none other than the wealth of resources of the Argentineans, almost as great as its own stupidity.”

Meanwhile, the organisation Greenpeace Argentina reported that, at this time, they are not “undertaking an active campaign with respect to fishing in national waters, more often than not for reasons of resource scarcity.”

“There are no doubts that one of the main problems of fishing at a global and local level is fish discards, which generates innumerable environmental problems: extinction of species, reduction of the population in predatory species, or overcrowding of others, which carries greater environmental imbalances, loss of labour positions, loss of natural resources, and in this way loss of possible income and work sources in the future,” the NGO indicates.

And adds: “In Greenpeace we think that the main cause of fishing depredation in our country is laziness by part of governmental authorities, at the national and provincial level, their lack of will to protect the resources of all the Argentineans. Since the decade of the 1990s, during which the worst known crisis took place, preceding the present one, the lack of control, and the complicity of the provincial and national states in marine depredation was evident. The situation has not changed much at present.”

FIS.com hopes the relevant authorities respond, clarify and inform the citizenry with respect to this subject, since it lacks certain concrete and reliable data.

Related articles:

- Santa Cruz fisheries subsecretary resigns
- Subsecretary defines responsibility on shrimper controls

By Analia Murias
editorial@fis.com
www.fis.com

Print