After its repair at the Tandanor Shipyard and a series of adjustments in Mar del Plata, the Eduardo L. Holmberg fishing research boat of Argentina's National Institute of Fisheries Research and Development (INIDEP) Monday set sail on a mission to evaluate mackerel (Scomber colias), it was reported.
Argentina's Fisheries Research and Development Institute, INIDEP, has signed the contract for the construction of a new fisheries and oceanographic research vessel to be built at the Armon shipyard in Vigo, Spain. The financing for the vessel and refurbishing of INIDEP's offices and labs comes from the Inter-American Development bank with a 30m dollars loan.
According to the latest stats from the Argentine Fisheries Under-Secretariat Office, between January first and 13 March, 2014, a total of 31,760.6 tons of squid (Illex argentinus) was landed in Argentine ports. Out of that volume, 213.3 tons correspond to January; 26,391.9 tons to February and in the first two weeks of March, 5,155.3 tons.
News this week that Argentina had decided to undertake fisheries research in the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI) is not connected in any way to the Falklands, Acting Governor Sandra Tyler-Haywood has assured.
The Buenos Aires media is reporting a potential incident situation in South Georgia waters which could erupt into something more complicated from the moment the Argentine research vessel ‘Eduardo Holmberg’ has been involved in scientific activities in a zone which last year was declared by the UK as a Maritime Protected Area, MPA, and which Argentina does not recognize since it considers it ‘an area in dispute’.
Argentina’s scientific research vessel “Dr. Eduardo L. Holmberg” left on Friday from Mar del Plata for the South Georgia area for a thirty day cruise in the framework of the Convention for the conservation of Antarctic marine living resources, CCAMLR, reports the Foreign Ministry from Buenos Aires.