Hake vessel. (Photo Magrama)
Galician fleet aims to improve hake quota in Mauritania fishing grounds
SPAIN
Tuesday, September 19, 2017, 02:00 (GMT + 9)
The Galician fleet operating in the Mauritania fishing zone is confident that it will be able to increase its fishing opportunities in the fishing grounds after the negotiations between the African country and the EU, as next week the Joint Commission will be held in Brussels.
Those responsible for the fishermen’s association met yesterday in the community capital to prepare the meeting in order to "improve the fishing protocol".
"We have to see if we can increase them (the quotas), especially for hake," said Juan Carlos Martín Fragueiro, managing director of the Association of Fishing Shipowners of in Marín. The fishing opportunities for this species are set at 3,500 tonnes under the current agreement, which offers freezer vessels twelve journeys a year (each approximately of twenty days). To the sector it is possible to reach this goal "if there is willingness".
Most of the improvements to be made to the Joint Committee are technical and operational for the fleet, consisting of freezer trawlers, fresh product ships, longliners and pole and line vessels (mainly from the Basque Country). The deal with Mauritania made it possible for the cephalopods to return to their waters after their exclusion in 2012. The agreement granted 1,400 tonnes of squid and 600 of cuttlefish, in addition to extra 25 per cent of fishing opportunities for demersal species.
The Scientific Council of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) meets Thursday in Montreal, Canada, and it will stress the allocation of total allowable catches (TAC) for next year. The Galician fleet operating in these waters assumes that there will be a cut in cod quotas, as well as a change in the halibut management pattern.
At the June assembly in Halifax, scientists raised a drastic 50 per cent cut. If this initial recommendation is followed, quotas will change from 13,931 tonnes of cod to 7,000 tonnes.
For halibut, redfish or stingrays, the proposal made by the Scientific Council would hardly change the quota figure allocated last year. For the current year the Galician vessels enjoyed fishing quotas for 1,992 tonnes.
Fuente: La Opinión A Coruña
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