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BIODIVERSITY: Hake Could Disappear from Argentina’s Seas

Marcela Valente* - Tierramérica

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 20 2008 (IPS) - An urgent government plan is the only thing that can save the common hake (Merluccius hubbsi), Argentina’s leading fish export, say environmentalists and experts.

The capture of hake must be reduced, fishing quotas should be more equitably distributed, and more information and stricter monitoring are needed, as well as assistance for dealing with an inevitable crisis, according to Argentina’s Wildlife Foundation (Fundación Vida Silvestre).

Added-value for the product, with more industrial processing, should also be increased to lessen the impact on smaller fishing operations, a sector that employs some 12,000 people in Argentina, says the Foundation.

A document the Foundation presented this month to officials, lawmakers, business leaders and fishing unions states that the government should implement a plan for the “urgent” recovery of the hake and establish a sustainable model with clear rules.

It also calls on fishing companies to take on “greater environmental and social responsibilities,” respect the established limits and participate in the plans for preventing the declining fish population from harming the industry.

“At the beginning of the year, due to fish shortages, we had to close the San Antonio Oeste processing plant in the province of Río Negro,” in southern Argentina, Gerardo Ditrich of the Alpesca company, which specialises in hake sales, told Tierramérica. The processing plant employed 270 workers.

Argentina’s fish exports surpassed 1.1 billion dollars in 2007, according to official figures. The largest share of the total was hake, followed by squid and shrimp. Exports of these Southern Atlantic species went primarily to Brazil, Spain and Italy.

But the lack of government oversight and continued overfishing have meant that in the last 20 years the adult hake population has shrunk 70 percent, says the Foundation. Since 2003, the rising international price for hake – 166 percent in five years – only increased the fish catches.

Argentina exported 44,352 tonnes of hake in 2002, and 156,300 tonnes in 2006. In 2007, new restrictions caused the annual total to drop to 138,800 tonnes, but that did not affect revenues because the price per kilo was higher.

The sector “faces difficulties that require a reasonable management of the resource,” Gerardo Nieto, deputy secretary of fishing and aquaculture, told Tierramérica, stressing that the government will work to achieve it.

“Based on the maximum captures permitted, we distribute quotas per boat and we monitor the zones where bans are in place. We have adopted measures to curb the activity, but there are factors that we can’t control, like international prices or environmental variables,” he said.

In late 2007, the fishing ministry ordered a 20 percent reduction in hake fishing.

But the Foundation says the measure was insufficient because the limit set at the beginning of 2007 was not implemented until the end of the year. It argued that for 2008 the restrictions should be even tighter.

Nieto says a draft law has been introduced that would reduce the taxes on the companies that export value-added hake, as a means to reduce the pressure on the fish stocks and prevent further layoffs.

Eighty percent of the exported hake is unprocessed and fetches lower prices. Only 15 percent is sold as skinless, boneless fillets. Each tonne of processed hake brings in 81 percent more than unprocessed, according to ministry figures.

The coordinator of the Wildlife Foundation’s marine programme, Guillermo Cañete, said in a Tierramérica interview that industrialisation is “one of the keys to advancing sustainable fishing” and recommended environmental certification – proof of sustainable production – as a market incentive.

The expert, who put together the Foundation document distributed earlier this month, proposed drafting a plan for each of Argentina’s coastal regions and better distribution of fishing quotas among boats that transport the fish fresh to shore and those that process the fish on board.

Cañete added that “the instruments for recording the captures are deficient. What are needed are electronic systems that certify what is actually caught, because the fishing companies themselves say that the controls fail.”

Some in the sector admit that “they discard as much as they declare,” he said.

Also needed are devices that allow younger, smaller fish to escape the nets, which requires a great deal of work in the capture of several thousand kilos, said the expert, noting that there are new, more flexible models.

“There are arguments that (the new models) are dangerous, but that is due to the obsolescence of the Argentine fleet,” said Cañete.

(*Originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)