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INITIAL
IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW HAKE RESOLUTION The
return of the freezer vessels Shortly
after the Secretariat
for Fisheries’
brand
new 73/2004
Resolution related to the new hake management regime was made public, a
preliminary analysis can be made of it. The most important features derived from
such an analysis are: the legal return of the freezer vessels to hake fishing
north of 48º S parallel -again posing a risk of collapse to the fishery-, a
reduction of about 60,000 annual tons in the quotas allocated to the ice
chilling fishing fleet -which will entail the immediate loss of two thousand
jobs-, and the catch quota process north of 41º S parallel. From
now on, forty
freezer vessels will be able to operate in the hake fishery and will be
authorized to catch about one hundred thousand tons of that species. It
is the first time in five years -an exception made from Rodríguez
Saa
fleeting mandate- that these vessels are authorized to enter the most abundant
hake areas, even though since 2000, year that marked their historical minimum,
they have been recovering ground due to cautionary measures mainly granted by
Rawson province substitute judges. Using
the same logic of a resolution that would authorize to cross a street when the
traffic lights are red, or to take all the sand off a beach, Undersecretary for
Fisheries Gerardo Nieto explained that, from now on, the lodging of appeals for
protection by companies operating freezer vessels will be “avoided”. Since
1999, however, due to the passing of the 25.109 emergency law by the Congress, the
key to the hake incipient recovery had been the prohibition against operating to
this fleet, which was able to catch by itself more than 400,000
annual tons of that resource in 1996 and 1997, after 1990s liberal policies had
made it possible for these Spanish vessels to operate under the flag of our
country. The
recent recovery of the satellite monitoring system, which had fully operated at
the end of 2000, offered the possibility of regaining control over the operation
of such a fleet with great fishing power. However, the new resolution eliminates
that possibility and threatens to bring us back to 1998 pre-collapse situation,
since the
Undersecretariat for Fisheries does not have an appropriate system to monitor
the enforcement of the quotas fixed per vessel. On
the other hand, the decision to reduce the allowable fishing quotas to the ice
chilling fishing fleet by about 60,000 annual tons is against the creation of
more jobs, as it is stipulated in article 1 of the Federal Fisheries Law. The
direct consequence of such a reduction will be the loss of about two thousand
jobs in cities that, like Mar del Plata, are still suffering the scourge of
unemployment. Besides,
those vessels that have experienced significant reductions in their quotas will
attempt to make up for these losses by directing their efforts to other
fisheries, such as the inshore one, posing the consequent risk of destroying the
balance and leading those fisheries to collapse. The result would be new
biological and socio-economic losses. These
measures adopted by the Undersecretary for Fisheries show a glaring
contradiction to President Kirchner’s policies,
since they favor the most concentrated fishing sectors - mainly foreigners - and
are detrimental to small and medium-sized businessmen -all of them native- and
to workers. In addition, such measures pose irresponsibly a risk to hake
recovery which needed, as several INIDEP’s reports have pointed out, to
maintain the “status-quo”. Rawson
province fleet is also clearly harmed due to this “quota system exercise”,
to such an extent that a 2,300-ton compensatory quota has had to be created;
however, it can also be insufficient. The
north stock quota system and the obstacles created so that some ice chilling
fishing vessels cannot operate in that area will lead to many consequences due
to their arbitrariness. This quota system is set on an annual basis of 50,000
tons that does not derive from any technical reports, and the limits fixed are
not taken into account in the Treaty with Uruguay, whereas
the Uruguayan fleet will operate freely in the same area. Finally,
it is worth mentioning that the resolution does not include any references to
the performance of the mostly Spanish shrimp-fishing fleet which, by itself,
catches between 30 and 40 thousand tons of hake only to throw them back to water.
This silence poses even more questions about the influences that predominate in
the current national fisheries management. We
shall soon present a more thorough analysis of the new hake management regime
and, at the same time, we shall attempt to coordinate with different sectors the
creation of a powerful body of opinion that tries to tune the fisheries
management to what the Nation President proclaims: sustainable
development together with social equity and defence of the national interests. Governing
Body Alejandra
Cornejo, Ernesto Godelman, Carlos Cabanas, Fabián González, Claudia García
Bacigalupo
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