MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Fisheries News.

Headlines:
Chile reacts to horse mackerel depletion; Argentina promotes sea trout farming;

Chile reacts to horse mackerel depletion

Chilean authorities are working at diplomatic level to preserve marine resources, particularly within the country's EEZ, says Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Carlos Portales. Chile is prepared to exercise its rights under international law, operating on the basis that everything within the EEZ belongs to the coastal nation and everything outside the EEZ is open to negotiation with other countries that are operating in the area, said Portales. The Chilean government is dealing with the problem officially for the first time since the National Fisheries Society (Sonapesca) expressed concerns about the "uncontrolled and unregulated" catching of horse mackerel by Chinese vessels on the border of Chile's 200 mile EEZ, reports El Sur. Skippers from the domestic fleet also reported that fourteen European vessels were fishing horse mackerel indiscriminately close to national waters off Region VIII. The sector fears the impact Russian, Chinese and other fleets may have on horse mackerel stocks, which they are fishing indiscriminately at the border of the country's EEZ, while the domestic fleet is subject to strict quotas and a minimum permitted size of 26 cm. Chilean authorities are now negotiating with other governments in a bid to have foreign vessels operating on shared resources in international waters observe the same conservation measures that the country demands from its own fishing vessels. "These are diplomatic negotiations that should be carried out according to each individual case," Ambassador José Manuel Ovalle, the Foreign Affairs Ministry fisheries negotiator, told El Sur. Under international conventions, deep-sea fishing is free but the Convention on the Law of the Sea also establishes that harvesting must be undertaken in a sustainable way, "so that resources are not plundered and coastal countries do not suffer the consequences," he added. (FIS/MP).-

Argentina promotes sea trout farming

Tierra del Fuego province in the extreme south of Argentina is promoting sea trout farming through a pilot project in Almanza. If successful the project will be extended to other areas of the province. The province's Natural Resources Department delivered cages to allow fish farmers to start farming the sea trout and anticipated experts will be constantly monitoring farmers' progress. Eduardo Barrientos, president of Tierra del Fuego Aquaculture Producers Cooperative, told El Sureño that farming in sea cages would allow fish farmers to diversify production, as they previously concentrated on fresh water trout. It would reduce breeding times and enable additional production to meet the needs of the local processing plant. The Natural Resources Department's Fisheries and Aquaculture Directorate said the project is the culmination of the transfer of specific technology acquired by the province for use in aquaculture. Fisheries supervisor José Ojeda said that prior to delivery of the cages they were inspected by Natural Resources Department technicians. Quoted by El Sureño, José Ojeda referred to the possibility of promoting similar projects. "It's the Department's intention to increase fresh and sea water trout farming throughout the province". (FIS/MP).

Seafood conference emphasises the environment

Environmental issues provided the focus for many speakers at the annual Seafood Industry Conference, held in Auckland, New Zealand at the end of May. Other major subjects discussed were international trade, the cost of compliance and developments in aquaculture. An early speaker, Malcolm McNeill of South Sea Bird Solutions, told delegates that the industry must strive to end all accidental catches of seabirds. He spoke of how fishers on the hoki, squid, ling and tuna boats had tried to mitigate the problem and how their methods had become of great interest to South American fishers. He then handed over to Ed Melvin, from the University of Washington, who has been appointed global technical coordinator of the programme. He has been heavily involved in the Alaskan fishery and told the conference that their fishery had achieved the greatest success with paired streamer lines that had proved most effective in keeping the birds away from the lines as they are fed out. The government had supported the programme by making the streamerlines free to the fleet and by paying for some of the davits, he said. Ed Melvin was followed by a group of speakers who continued to look at the various environmental impacts of fishing. Dave Kellian explained how the Conservation Service programme aimed to help fishers develop a more conservation sensitive approach to fishing by having most of the tuna fleet fit tori lines and preventing any discard of offal over the side of the vessel. Next up was Martin Cawthron, the designer of the sea lion excluder device (SLED). He said the device was working well and it did not appear to damage seals. Design faults that had caused bruising of seals had been largely eliminated. The device is important to the local industry because the Minister has the right to close the southern squid fishery when the just a few of the endangered Hooker's Sea Lions are killed in nets. Ted Loveday of Seafood Food Services Australia spoke of how they had developed environmental management systems, which bring all the groups together and get the community involved with the fishers and work out a sustainable plan of development for the industry. Then the focus turned to the international markets. A series of speakers outlined just how important the Australian market was for New Zealand. We are the second largest exporter of fish to Australia and the trade is worth AUD 164 million a year. Only the Thai imports are larger at AUD 232 per year. The New Zealand fish is largely chilled or frozen. The majority of exports of fin fish were snapper, blue nose tuna, hapuka, ling, terakihi, hoki, flounder, and salmon, but he believed that the Australian market had opportunities for other species like ribaldo, warehou, trumpeter, moonfish and the various dories. After lunch the conference delegates were linked by video with Simon Adamson, the New Zealand Trade Commissioner in South America. He spoke at length about the industry developments there particularly in Chile and Brazil and pointed out that there were opportunities for New Zealand companies in the massive aquacultural developments taking place. The last speakers on the Thursday were from NIWA and they discussed the effects of global warming on New Zealand fishing, fish stocks and the problems of algal bloom. Before lunch on Friday (30 May) there was a panel of speakers on habitat protection. This is becoming an increasingly important issue as the run off from land based developments affects the purity of water that is needed for aquacultural development. The keynote speaker for the morning, Dr Jim Anderson of the University of Rhode Island, spoke of the greater opportunities for control of the environment offered by aquaculture. In the afternoon delegates broke into workshops to consider problems like recruiting and retaining staff, the future of New Zealand aquaculture and electronic monitoring. (FIS/MP).-