Aug
10
Anchovy capture. (Photo: Stock File)
Shipowners to report the Govt for not increasing anchovy quota
SPAIN
Tuesday, August 11, 2015, 03:10 (GMT + 9)
Authorities of the Purse Seiner Owners’ Association of Galicia (ACERGA) will report the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment (MAGRAMA) for “not having fulfilled its promise” to expand the anchovy quota in the south of Finisterre.
“We will leave the matter in the attorney’s hands for him to use all the possible legal ways of sorting it out,” ACERGA board announced.
Although the organization recognizes that this process will take a long time, it stressed that it intends to prevent the fleet from disappearing, the newspaper Faro de Vigo reported.
The absence of a horse mackerel and sardine quota is added to the anchovy fishery ban in zone IXa (south of Fisterra) in February, although the former Secretary General of Fisheries, Carlos Dominguez, had promised that there would be further anchovy for the Galician ships in case the resource appears on the coasts of the community.
“In the zone IXa there are a lot of anchovy specimens. In this way the shipowners saw it, especially from Thursday to Friday, when there were a lot. The fleet is not going to let this situation to continue. Galicia is tired of begging for quota,” emphasized ACERGA management.
For its part, the Provincial Association of Purse Seiner Owners of the Province of Pontevedra (CERCO) held a meeting to discuss the tragic situation in which its fleet is with respect to, among others, the anchovy fishery in the south Galicia [zones IX and X of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES)], for which in 2015 only a quota of 59 tonnes has been set.
“What is concerning, upsetting and contradictory is especially the incompliance shown by the heads of the General Secretariat of Maritime Fisheries, whose previous secretary general, Carlos Dominguez, pledged to increase the percentage of participation of the anchovy fishery in the moment when the species was found to reach waters in the south of Galicia, as it is happening these days,” the entity stated in a release.
He added: “With astonishment and dismay, professionals of the purse seine fleet note that despite having an abundant resource in Galician waters, they can not capture it because they are still not complying with the commitment made at the time, which was to make, via the increase in participation percentages in the fisheries, the quota available to the Galician fleet operating south of the region “.
Related article:
– Low mackerel quota worries the sector
By Analia Murias
editorial@fis.com
www.fis.com
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