Fishery with restricted access to new operators; with global catch quota and maximum limit per shipowner. (Subpesca)

ASIPES supports government efforts to avoid jack mackerel overfishing in the Pacific

CHILE
Monday, October 14, 2019, 00:00 (GMT + 9)

The Association of Fisheries Industrialists (ASIPES), the main fishing union that operates on jack mackerel, supported the efforts of the Government of Chile, through the Undersecretary of Fisheries, to denounce internationally that Peru self-defined an increse of its jack mackerel quota to 138,000 tonnes, of which it has already captured almost its entirety. In this way, the neighboring country has long exceeded the 60,000-tonne quota that had been set by the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO), an international entity that establishes managing measures, and regulates and sets quotas for fishery resources in the South Pacific.

South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO) map

“We do not agree with this kind of unilateral decisions that break international agreements for the protection and management of the fishery resources that we share with  the countries of the South Pacific, because they undermine the sustainability of the species and throw down the enormous effort that has meant to recover horse mackerel, a fishery of enormous economic and labor importance for our country. The RFMO is precisely the instance where it is assumed that there is a transversal consensus to comply with the measures established therein, always based on scientific criteria and where, since its creation, short-term interests have never prevailed,” said ASIPES President Macarena Cepeda Godoy.

The executive valued the work of Fisheries Undersecretary Román Zelaya Ríos to resort to all available international bodies to try to reverse the effects of that decision, “since they are in the right line of taking care of fishery resources, ensuring their future sustainability and protecting scientific criteria and technicians who must govern the decision making of fisheries”.
 
"We call on the member states of the RFMO to respect the sustainable quotas established by the Scientific Committee of this organization without exceptions, since this has allowed jack mackerel to recover and ensure its future availability," she added.

The president of ASIPES explained that in Chile the jack mackerel fishery recovered thanks to the fulfillment of the assigned quotas and to a thorough work in the care of the resource.

“ASIPES partner companies today capture 80% of the jack mackerel quota allocated to Chile (380,000 tonnes) and have been able to certify this fishery internationally under sustainable parameters, declare it free of illegal fishing and thus ensure employment, promote human consumption of this fishery and the vital economic contribution for communes such as Talcahuano, Colonel and Lota, ”explained Macarena Cepeda.

Camanchaca produces frozen and canned jack mackerel in its plants located in Talcahuano and Coronel (Photo: Camanchaca)

In Chile, companies Alimar, Blumar, Camanchaca, FoodCorp, Landes and Orizon received the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for the jack mackerel fishery this year. This certification proves that the fishery resources that exhibit said label come from a sustainable fishery and each company in the distribution chain has passed a detailed traceability audit.

The companies in the south central zone produced 158,000 tonnes of frozen and 32,000 tonnes of canned  jack mackerel (more than 3 million boxes) for direct human consumption in the first half of this year, which also generated export returns, only in this first semester, of about USD 177 million. The fisheries industry is defined today as a food industry, since 70% of the resources that its fleet captures goes to frozen and canned products, that is, direct human consumption .The main products are frozen jack mackerel, common hake, giant squid and prawns, as well as canned jack mackerel in various formats.

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