Image: Revista Puerto / FIS

Distribution of common hake and setback for Prodesur in the CFP

The Federal Fisheries Council distributed tons from the Administration Reserve. Given the great demand for wet fish vessels, priority will be given to them until September 27, then requests for freezer vessels will also be taken. In addition, they described the request by the owner of the Tai An vessel for a quota of toothfish as inadmissible.

During last Thursday's meeting, the Federal Fisheries Council addressed the requests for the allocation of hubbsi hake tonnage, a demand that reflects a shrimp season without the expected returns from the wet fish fleet. On the other hand, the request for a toothfish quota by the Prodesur company for its Tai An vessel was analyzed outside the requirements established in the Quota Regime.

Photo: Prodesur

Returning to the hubbsi hake

The Common Hake Administration Reserve had, until Thursday's meeting, 26,135.60 tons from the return of quota made by many vessels that, as has been the case for approximately a decade, direct their target fishing to shrimp for much of the year. In 2023, some must have regretted making part of their quota available to the authority, given that the crustacean did not give the satisfactory results of other years, especially for the deep-sea wet fish fleet, which reduced its catches by almost 40% compared to the shrimp landings in 2022. That is why it would not be strange if this year the reserve is exhausted. Last week, 3,471 tons were redistributed among 16 wet fish vessels.

Source: Stockfile FIS

Until Wednesday the 27th, as established by the CFP, the allocation of catch volumes from the Common Hake Administration Reserve will be made giving priority to wet fish vessels, "because the available balance exceeds the requests of this fleet," according to is indicated in the minutes. And from that date onwards, allocation requests for freezer vessels will be considered.

Perhaps the dispersion of the shrimp, and the winds that El Niño brought and it is not known how long they will stay, will allow us to accommodate the productive scenario of fishing, doing what the authorities have not done. The wet fish vessels are returning to hake, reactivating the activity in the Mar del Plata processing plants and complying with the Quota Regime, something that has not happened since 2013.

Prodesur tried to enter through the window

Source: Stockfile FIS-->

During the Toothfish Commission Meeting, the companies holding quotas for this very valuable species brought the owner of the Tai An vessel to the dock for the levels of bycatch it was having, which they considered to be a covert directed fishery. However, INIDEP and the Fisheries Directorate, based on the catch data and observers, determined that the Prodesur company, owner of the vessel, had not failed to comply with current regulations and that in no case had the established limit of the 1.5% of the total catch.

The quota holders claimed that this percentage was too high and that the captures were made in areas where juvenile specimens are found, whose capture is expressly prohibited and therefore those who carry out directed fishing are forced to carry out the operations at depths greater than 800 meters. Given this claim, the permitted bycatch percentage was maintained, but a limit was established in tons per tide.

But Prodesur, in addition to recognizing that it was within the law, intended to participate again in the distribution of toothfish and presented a note requesting the allocation of a quota for that species.

During the Commission meeting, the note was not entered, probably because it would have generated strong rejection from the other companies and an accusation of directed fishing intentions; but it was discussed last Thursday by the counselors and the answer was the obvious one.

“Prodesur SA requests the allocation of CITC for toothfish for the Tai An vessel. It estimates that the conditions would be in place for the CITC Reassignment Fund of the species to be increased due to the lack of exploitation of another vessel and expresses that the allocation requested would contribute to going through the difficult economic situation in which it finds itself.”

Photo: Revista Puerto

At the time of quotation, the Tai An vessel received a quota that was later expanded by transfers, reaching more than 3% of the total catch, but at one point it decided to transfer its entire quota, leaving the vessel outside of this distribution system. Therefore, the Council indicated: “CITC is currently of the species due to business decisions taken within the framework of current regulations that continue to offer the legal capacity to contract a new transfer with current CITC holders. Added to this is that the speculation about the loss of CITC of one of the holders is not current, which is why the request can also be rejected.”

Therefore, in order to access the resource, Prodesur must buy quota or settle for the incidental capture, which, judging by its quota-holder colleagues, is very high, but within the limits established by the authorities and INIDEP.

Source: Revista Puerto (Traslated from the original in Spanish)

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