The sardine returned to Venezuelan dinner tables at the beginning of Catholic Holy Week, when fish traditionally replaces meat, following the 21,000-ton catch along the northern coast. This inexpensive fish was scarce since the beginning of the year “because of overexploitation of stocks in the southern Caribbean since 1990, changes in the winds and in water temperatures, which favored the predators and slowed maturation,” Daniel Novoa, former director of the National Insitute of Fisheries, explained to Tierramérica.

In Venezuela, the law limits sardine fishing to artisanal or subsistence fisherfolk. Seventy-five percent of the catch is destined for domestic consumption.

The fisherfolk are calling for a three-fold increase in the fixed sales price of three cents of the dollar per kilogram of fish.