Aug
26
A fishing vessel of the fleet from Gran Sol. (Photo: Barcos del Gran Sol Blog)
Gran Sol boats fear losing half their fishing quota
SPAIN
Tuesday, August 27, 2013, 02:00 (GMT + 9)
A report of the Cooperative of Fishing Ship Owners of the Port of Vigo (ARVI) warns that the new rules on discards of the European Union (EU) will force the Galician Gran Sol fleet to remain moored in port for 218 days a year.
According to the document, based on statistical data from previous years, this is the “most optimistic” hypothesis.
ARVI argues that it is anticipated that the new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) will force the fishing vessels to moor for five or six months a year.
For shipowners from Galicia, this situation is “unsustainable” and would cause “thousands” of layoffs in an autonomous community that depends on fishing activity for their livelihood, the newspaper La Opinion reported.
Jose Antonio Suarez Llanos, ARVI deputy manager, clarified that it is a “theoretical” study and that it may even have underestimated the negative consequences.
The Galician fishing sector argues that the decisions taken by the European Commission (EC) for discards and the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) would imply stopping fishing some 8,180 tonnes of the only three species for which it has quota.
The report is based on the fishing areas located west of Scotland, west and southwest of Ireland.
The vessels operating in these areas are from four countries: France, UK, Ireland and Spain.
The Spanish fishermen accidentally catch several species — haddock, whiting, plaice, cod, sole and boar fish –, which so far have been returned to the sea. But with the new EU provisions it will be forbidden to throw an average of 7 per cent of accidentally caught fish into the sea.
But Suarez Llanos stressed that no net allows fishermen to make a “natural selection” and that as they have a lower quota, they will have to discard more.
“It’s a vicious cycle,” he highlighted.
Given this situation, ARVI claims a ‘British quota cheque’ for Spain in order to redress the imbalance in the distribution of fishing quotas, the newspaper La Voz de Galicia reported.
Related article:
– Galician shipowners alarmed by discard ban
By Analia Murias
editorial@fis.com
www.fis.com
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