The Supreme Court ratifies SERNAPESCA's traceability system as the only means to inform fish landings

Supreme Court confirms shipowners must use SERNAPESCA's electronic traceability system

CHILE
Friday, March 22, 2019, 21:00 (GMT + 9)

The National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service (SERNAPESCA) describes the resolution of the Supreme Court ratifying its traceability system as the only means to inform fishing landings as "a triumph in the fight against illegal fishing."

The Supreme Court upheld the verdicts of Concepción Court of Appeals, and definitively rejected the two appeals for protection filed by artisanal shipowners of SIPARMA-Lota organization, represented by attorney Pablo Manríquez, the same attorney who filed a second appeal this week, sponsoring three ship owners from Coronel and one from Coliumo, this time against landing certification.

SERNAPESCA inspector on the left and the building of the Supreme Court on the right

The decision of the highest court in the country is unappealable, and dictates that there are no legal reasons for these shipowners to submit fishing landing declarations on paper. Therefore, they must use SERNAPESCA’s electronic traceability system, as 98 per cent of shipowners in the Biobío region has been doing since last year.

SERNAPESCA’s National Director Alicia Gallardo celebrated the ruling and indicated that this validates the graduality with which this new technology was implemented.

"The Service made a gradual implementation of this platform, which included training for all our users, providing all the facilities to learn the use of this electronic tool, which allows them to report their landings and also makes traceability to products possible, which goes in direct protection of the resources and of a sustainable fishing activity," she said.

SERNAPESCA's online traceability system collects and connects all the information of the productive chain of the fishing activity, including artisanal and industrial fishermen, benthic resources management areas, harvest centres, shore collectors and shellfish divers up to processing plants and marketers. Everyone must enter their information of caught resources and movements of products through this system. This information is also contrasted with that collected in the field by the auditors and therefore, it is a key tool in combating illegal fishing.

Likewise, Gallardo dismissed the contempt accusations made by the same attorney regarding the second protection remedy of three shipowners from Coronel and one from Coliumo. The fisheries authority clarified that the entity acts in compliance with fishing regulations and the permanent or temporary provisions of the courts. "In this particular case, the Regional Directorate is providing all the background of the case in order to deny the accusations," she said.

Comparison of accompanying fauna percentages Without Certification (2017) versus With Certification (2018)

However, the SERNAPESCA national director stressed the importance of maintaining a strict control over a fleet where there has been a high level of illegality, and where the measures implemented from last year, such as the Traceability System and the mandatory landing certification have given excellent results.

"In 2017 we had declarations of between 60 and 76 per cent of the accompanying fauna, which obviously was a form of sub-reporting and artificially increasing fishing quotas, which is an illegal practice." With the traceability system, and especially with the mandatory landing certification, those percentages of the accompanying fauna fell below 8 per cent, which demonstrates the effectiveness of our systems, and we hope that this will also be understood by the courts where these resources have been presented," she said.

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