MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina’s head of fisheries flatly denies “uncontrolled hake catches”

Norberto Yauhar: “unjustified alarmism”

Argentina’s head of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Under Secretariat Norberto Yauhar openly denied the alleged collapse of hake (Merluccius hubbsi) fishery in the South Atlantic and claims of absence of control measures and management to ensure its sustainability.

Yauhar described the scenario in an article published last week in the newspaper La Nación, titled “The uncontrolled fishing of hake populations” as “unjustified alarmism”.

In the article, the Foundation for Wildlife (FVSA) warned that the abundance of hake decreased by 80% in the last 20 years because of over-fishing and that the size of current catches is over 60% juveniles.

In response to these allegations, Yauhar pointed out the control and fishery management steps taken by his offices among which:

• The existence of a permanently closed area to protect juvenile hake, which has now has expanded to over 193 000 square kilometres, similar to that of countries like Uruguay, Syria, Senegal;
• The requirement for the entire national fishing fleet to use a satellite monitoring system that reports the position, course and speed of the boats every hour;
• In case of failure to comply with measures, the immediate return to port of the vessel in question is ordered;
• Mandatory port stops for vessels authorised to fish hake that are designed to reduce fishing pressure on the resource which demand they call after 50 days per year for fresh fish vessels and 75 days per year for freezer vessels. This represents between 20% to 30% of normal annual operations;
• The adoption for the management of this resource of a system of individual transferable catch quotas (CITC) instead of the 'Olympic' system that existed in the past.
• The implementation from 1 January 2010 of the Certification System of Legal Capture, which allows more efficient monitoring to interweave the various databases that reflect fleet operations. Catches to be reported haul by haul and landings are fully inspected upon arrival in port. In addition, satellite monitoring information shows who the catch was made, where and export data includes the health certificate issued by the National Service for Health and Food Quality, (SENASA) plus the documentation required by the Directorate General Customs;
• This crossing of all this information leaves no margin for under-reporting, which means declaring less or replacing species with another, in this case, stick fish (Percophis brasiliensis) for hake.
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With regard to statements about the disturbing fact that catches of 2009 were dominated 61% by juveniles and 39% by adults, scientific reports indicate that “this is not a true picture of the population composition which varies from year to year because the inclusion of juveniles is highly fluctuating and depends on the conditions of the population and environmental conditions. Nor is it mentioned that rates similar to those of 2009 were observed in 1993, 1996 and 2004.“

He also stressed that the authorities of his office are well aware that the protection of juveniles ”is fundamental to achieving the objective of sustainable exploitation of this vital resource for fishing Argentina”.

For this reason, the Federal Fisheries Council (CFP) established the compulsory use of selectivity devices that prevent over-fishing of juveniles in the hake fishery, as well as in the hake and shrimp (Pleoticus muelleri) fisheries.

Last May CFP decided to use as a first step, four sets of selectivity for hake: Flexigrid, Dejupa, T 90 and square mesh, each with different penalties, according to provisions from the National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development, INIDEP, report.

Finally Yauhar stressed that “the total catch this year will not exceed that of the previous year, which was 30% lower than the current maximum allowable catch for the current year”. (FIS).