FISHERIES-BRAZIL: Fighting for Bigger Tuna Quotas in the South Atlantic

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 3 2001 (IPS) - Countries on the south Atlantic like Brazil are fighting for a greater share of the catch in fishing grounds that are dominated by distant nations like Spain and Japan.

Although waged on the diplomatic front, the battles announced for May and November in the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) will be tooth-and-nail, warned the head of Brazil’s Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Gabriel Calzavara.

Brazil has set out to create a movement of African and South American countries with Atlantic coastlines, aimed at overhauling the fishing quotas set for tuna and other species in the south Atlantic, where the fishing grounds are mainly exploited by outsiders.

It is not reasonable for Brazil, the biggest country on the south Atlantic, to be alloted just three to four percent of the tuna catch, argued Calzavara and Giácomo Perciavalle, the president of the National Fishing Commission, which represents fishing interests.

The fear is that Brazil’s small portion will be frozen in the quotas to be set by ICCAT this year.

Although Brazil will seek a quota of 40 percent, Perciavalle admitted that it would be virtually impossible to obtain, and that 25 to 30 percent would be considered satisfactory.

The problem is that since the first species began to be regulated – swordfish, in 1997 – ICCAT has distributed fishing rights based on each member country’s historic share of the catch.

Brazil, due to its historically low level of fishing activity, was excluded from north Atlantic quotas, even though it had an extensive exclusive economic zone in that part of the ocean, while its quota of the swordfish caught in its own waters was set at just 16 percent.

Meanwhile, Spain was awarded 40 percent and Japan 26 percent of the 14,400 tonnes set as the annual catch limit for swordfish in the south Atlantic between 1997 and 2000.

Brazil protested that the criteria on which quotas were set made it impossible for countries to develop their fishing industries, while perpetuating the dominion over the sea exercised by distant countries.

At the May 21-23 ICCAT meeting in Brussels, the Brazilian delegates will recommend that other criteria, such as length of coastline, proximity, or a country’s protein needs be taken into account in the setting of quotas.

But while many new criteria will be accepted, the problem will be the relative weight each one will have in the setting of new quotas at a second meeting, in November, said Perciavalle, the owner of a fishing company in the southern town of Itajaí.

The Madrid-based ICCAT was set up in 1969 to enforce the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna, which dates back to 1966. The commission has 30 member countries, some of which have no Atlantic coastline but have fishing fleets in that ocean, like South Korea, Japan and Russia.

ICCAT data collection and a decline in the catch size of a number of species in the 1980s pointed to the need to set catch limits, which was done shortly after in the case of swordfish. The aim now is to set limits on other endangered species.

Brazil, which in the past only fished near its own coastline, put up no resistance to ICCAT decisions, even those that ran against its interests, until 1997, said Perciavalle.

But it underwent a change of attitude when Spain and other big fishing nations put large fleets in the south Atlantic, with the aim of pushing up their historic catch in order to obtain larger quotas in this year’s negotiations, the businessman added.

In response to that tactic, Brazil is not only preparing its arguments to get new quota-setting criteria taken into account, but has leased tuna fishing vessels while busily building its own boats.

Thanks to the leased vessels, Brazil’s catch has shot up over the past five years. In the first two months of this year, for example, the catch was 130 percent up from the same period in 2000, Perciavalle pointed out.

But environmentalists complain that with the new policy, Brazil allows companies to lease pirate ships. “It is not acceptable for the country to increase its deep sea fishing by legitimating ships that are considered illegal,” complained biologist Cristina Bonfiglioli with Greenpeace Brazil.

Greenpeace reported that one of the vessels leased by Brazil was the Chinese-made “Wen Shun 606”, which is registered in the Caribbean archipelago of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and figures on an ICCAT list of boats involved in illegal, unregulated fishing.

That fact weakens Brazil’s credibility in its legitimate struggle for larger tuna quotas, the biologist argued.

Perciavalle, however, downplayed such accusations, arguing that Brazil was helping reduce pirate fishing by hiring those vessels and bringing them into the realm of regulated fishing.

The catch of the Wen Shun 606, which would have continued its illegal activity if it had not been leased by Brazilian business interests, is now added to Brazil’s quota, he argued, pointing out that a full 40 percent of the global tuna catch is unregulated.

But Spain, in an attempt to neutralise Brazil’s strategy, proposed that in the distribution of quotas, catches be attributed to the country of origin of fishing vessels, rather than to those who lease them.

The dispute over quotas has been triggered by the fact that the catch limits for tuna and related species in the north and south Atlantic will not be increased this year from the current 600,000 tonnes.

That is equivalent to two to three billion dollars just in fish, or 20 billion dollars once industrial processing and productive and commercial aspects are factored in, Perciavalle noted.