Wide participation

Course on Fishing Monitoring and Control came to an end

The Course on “Fishing Monitoring and Control”, organized by CeDePesca at the Escuela Nacional de Pesca “Luis Piedrabuena” (National Fishing School “Luis Piedrabuena”) in Mar del Plata city, was held on 16^th and 17^th October. The Course on “Fishing Monitoring and Control”, organized by CeDePesca at the Escuela Nacional de Pesca “Luis Piedrabuena” (National Fishing School “Luis Piedrabuena”) in Mar del Plata city, was held on 16^th and 17^th October.

65 people participated in the training given during two working days. Among the people present at the course, there were members of the Ministry of Economy, of the Argentine Navy, of the National Coast Guard, of the Undersecretariat for Fisheries of Buenos Aires province, and of the Undersecretariat for Fisheries of Santa Cruz; there were also fishing companies’ skippers. Students at the National Fishing School also took part in the course.

The event was opened with an exposition in charge of Ernesto Godelman, both a member of our association and a specialist in marine fisheries management. His introduction to the subject was based on the analysis of the international background, on the description and differentiation between key concepts, and on the explanation of the operating procedures for devising a Vigilance, Control and Monitoring System. Subsequently, Bachelor Gabriel Blanco, in charge of INIDEP’s -National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development- Scientific Observer Project, made reference to the aims of his work, to the training required to go on board and to the observer training process. In the second part of his speech, there was an analysis not only of the value of the information gathered by the observers, but also of the way in which it is examined and processed by INIDEP’s research projects as well as by the implementation authority.

In the afternoon, Bachelor Juan Bono, Head of Computing Centre at the research institute previously mentioned, gave a description both of Argentina’s organizations related to maritime activities and of the international agreements to which such activities are subject. Based on this political and legislative context, INIDEP’s computing centre has developed a National Network of Fishing Information, software including updated data of vessels and ship owners to which the speaker referred at length.

In the morning of the following day, Godelman went on analysing a highly controversial issue: the necessary costs of vigilance, control and monitoring tasks. Afterwards, there was an analysis of the main problematic cores of the issue hindering these functions from developing favourably. Such an analysis was carried out in a wide-ranging debate which also included the expertise of skippers and officials present at the meeting.

By the end of the morning, Head Prefect Luis Alberto Heiler, Head of the Department of Fisheries Auxiliary Police, expounded on the task performed by the National Coast Guard in the fishing vigilance area. Moreover, he made special reference to the recent implementation of the new satellite monitoring system.

In the final afternoon, Juan Buono developed the technical concepts that made it possible to understand the way in which satellite monitoring systems function. He also considered the advantages and weaknesses not only of the Mompesat old system, used until the beginning of 2002, but also of the new monitoring method introduced by the Undersecretariat for Fisheries as from last 18^th September. Afterwards, his exposition focused on the proposal to implement an “Information Integrated System” for control tasks, which enables to improve access to information and cross-check of data from several sources.

For such a purpose, he based on the presentation of some programs developed by his team of technicians, which make it possible to have instant access to catch data, vessel positioning and course data, the records of each vessel, oceanographic conditions, among other data. Even though the proposal is at the project stage, it aims both at improving access to the available information and at enabling data collected from different sources to be compared, since at present this data cannot be cross-checked due to differences in the gathering criteria.

In next issues, we shall be sharing in more detail the most salient features of each exposition, along with some reflections on the current situation of the fisheries control in Argentina.

CeDePesca 24/10/2003

The development of the course was documented due to the collaboration of the video department at the National Fishing School; this material will be opportunely edited.

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