ENVIRONMENT-ARGENTINA Hake Stocks On Verge Of Collapse

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 22 1997 (IPS) - Hake, once one of the most abundant species of fish in Argentine waters, is being exploited to a degree that a new law passed in Parliament this month may not be able to end over-fishing.

The Hubbsi hake represents 50 percent of the total fish catch in Argentina and it has become a big export to Europe and Japan. as well as being one of the staple meals on Argentine tables – and one of the cheapest.

Trawlers have been catching beyond the agreed limits for the past seven years and supplies of the Hubssi hake, a symbol of the industry in the southern Atlantic, are now threatened say marine biologists and environmentalists. In addition, there are other threatened species, such as calamari, shrimp and black hake.

Emiliano Ezcurra, an expert on fishing at the international environmental group Greenpeace, said that the maximum recommended catch of hake this year was 395,000 tons, but already 500,000 tons of the species had been landed.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fishing acknowledged in October that it was concerned with this development, and pased a series of measures ranging from prohibited areas for fishing, restrictrions in other places, , stricter fines for violators and lax inspectors to snap inspections. But these measures have not been sufficient.

“The Ministry should shut down the fisheries as soon as their limit is passed”, said Ezcurra, who organized a protest in front of the official headquarters with Greenpeace militants dressed up as bloody-smeared hake.

Moreover, the estimated fish catch does not include the amount of fish that is discarded. If it did, the estimate of hake fished would rise to 800,000 tons, according to Ezcurra. He also expressed alarm at the fact that there was already 30 percent of hake which never reaches the stage of laying eggs.

The National Institute of Fishing Research and Development thinks that in order to keep the resource viable, 30 percent of its specimens must be young. Currently, hake does not reach that percentage, so it is necessary to put a stop on fishing so as not to exhaust the supply in the short term.

“Hake stocks are showing signs of collapse. We have to go further and further to find it, and stay for longer periods of time in order to fill up the deposits” in the boats, explained Ezcurra.

The former director of the Institute for Fishing Research, Antonio Malaret, agreed. He said that hake, a resource that only a few years ago was expanding, “is now on the verge of collapse”, due to the decline in its availability and the age of the fish that are caught.

The director of the High-Seas Captains’ Center, Horacio Angriman, said that the personnel on the fishing boats have observed that there is less volume and that the fish are smaller, because they have no time to develop, and therefore cannot reproduce.

“There is a total lack of control, which is tacitly accepte by the authorities, and which is leading us to verge of collapse this year”, said Angriman.

Concern is widespread in all sectors linked in one way or another to the fishing industry. Fishermen, entrepreneurs, boat builders, environmental activists and unions all fear that what once was an abundant resource on the coast is doomed to disappear.

The maximum volume allowed has been 395,000 tons since 1989, when permits were unrestricted and the flotilla was still not as developed as it became in the 1990s. Between 1989 and 1997, legal fishing doubled in volume, and excess fishing rose to higher levels.

In 1991, the recommended minimum was surpassed, and since then it has been increasing gradually. Today, illegal fishing is double the volume permitted by law.

The level of overfishing is also a cause of great concern for entrepreneurs, who for several months have been asking the government to intervene. The local industry currently has 1,000 boats at sea and 150 plants on shore and there are numerous foreign boats that fish within the 200 miles or on the limit, where the hake lay their eggs.

All those who participate in the activity are calling for a new laws and, while applauding the fact that one has already been approved in the House of Representaives, they still are not satisfied. Captains and environmentalists fear that an article within the law that creates a system of transferable individual quotas will increase concentration.

This system establishes a quota for each boat, the sum being equal to the maximum volume allowed. “The problem is that there are financial groups that can buy 30 percent of the fishing permits for onespecies”, said Ezcurra.

The system encourages waste, because in order to take advantage of the maximum allowed, many fish are necessarily discarded.

Experts like Malaret believe that it is necessary to develop fishing techniques that let smaller fish go, and thus allow for the growth of an industry with greater value added for export, and not increase the activity in the extractive stage.

The Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishing of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) recommends consulting with all parties involved in the process before legislating on fishing. But that isnt the case under Argentine law.

Angriman observed that the problem of an eventual concentration of the activity could arise with the quota system. He also warned about an issue that is being raised on the boats, which inhibits the actions of those who are supposed to exercising some kind of control.

On the refrigerator boats and tugboats captained by Argentines, the majority of technical experts for fishing are foreign, predominantly Spanish. “They are really the ones in charge of the boats, even more than the captain”, he said.

“In a context of high unemployment, as is currently the case in Argentina, where out of 2,000 affiliates of the Captains’ Center, only 700 are employed, there seems to be greater concern for jobs than for natural resources,” said Angriman.

In his opinion, the new law should consider reducing foreign personnel in favor of Argentineans, who not only are subject to sanctions if they overfish, but also have a greater interest in preserving the resource so that the activity can continue.