Faustino Velasco, president of Satlink together with Julio Morón, managing director of OPAGAC, both in 'Covid19 version'

Opagac and Satlink renew their agreement for the application of advanced technology to the transparency and sustainability of the tuna fishery

SPAIN
Tuesday, October 27, 2020, 08:00 (GMT + 9)

Madrid - The Organization of Associated Producers of Large Freezer Tuna Boats (OPAGAC) and Satlink, a Spanish company that develops satellite technology solutions for the fishing sector, have renewed their collaboration agreement for the development and implementation in the tuna fleet of advanced technology applied to sustainable fishing practices, optimization of operational costs and communication services for crews.

Since the beginning of the collaboration between both entities, in 2015, technology has acquired an increasingly relevant role to verify compliance with the regulation of fishing activity and its good practices. In fact, the Spanish tuna fleet is not only at the forefront in the application of technology to improve the efficiency and sustainability of its activity, but also promotes the modernization of the fisheries management systems of Equatorial Guinea, Cook Islands or Seychelles, within the framework of fisheries agreements with third countries in which it operates.

Satlink is currently the leading supplier of telecommunications systems for the fishing sector and focuses its R&D on the development of smart buoys and the evolution of its VMS (Vessel Monitoring System) systems for locating vessels and permanently registering their activity, as well as the ERS (Electronic Recording and Reporting System) system. The company, which has a portfolio of more than 6,000 clients, works for the main tuna companies in the world that use its technology to transmit, via satellite, their exact location to control bodies or verify the volume and composition of the catches, discards and incidental catches of other species.

ccording to Julio Morón, managing director of OPAGAC, “our fleet has made the fact of having the best control mechanisms of fishing activity one of our hallmarks and a requirement to guarantee that our catches are the result of transparent fishing , sustainable and responsible and thus differentiate ourselves in the market from those fleets repeatedly accused of illegal fishing. In this sense, the commitment to improve our tropical tuna fishery ”-Morón adds - "it goes through technological improvement, an area in which our shipowners and Satlink have been cooperating for a long time with the aim of developing practical solutions to face the challenges of global fisheries management".

For his part, for Faustino Velasco, president of Satlink, “satellite telecommunications technology contributes to fundamental aspects of fishing activity, such as sustainability, the optimization of the fishing effort or compliance with the regulations that regulate it. For this, we have cutting-edge solutions and the necessary research and development capacity to lead a sector, the fishing industry, which, necessarily, has to rely on technology to adapt its activity to increasingly demanding regulations with traceability, origin sustainable products fisheries and social and environmental responsibility ”.

editorial@seafood.media
www.seafood.media

Print