Government enacts law that protects the first 5 nautical miles from industrial fishing

The Executive enacted the Law 31749which recognizes traditional ancestral fishing and traditional artisanal fishing and promotes its preservation within 5 Peruvian maritime miles, approved by Congress last April.

The law seeks to establish public policies aimed at providing better living conditions for fishermen, maintaining their traditional and cultural union with the sea, lakes, lagoons and rivers. Likewise, it promotes the preservation of these for the extraction of hydrobiological resources within five maritime miles for their subsistence, tourism and commercialization.

For this purpose, the area comprised by the first 5 nautical miles adjacent to the coast is established as a protection zone for the existing flora and fauna. Extractive activities on a larger scale are not allowed within this reserved area.

In this area, the use of fishing gear, methods and gear that modify the bioecological conditions of the marine environment will be prohibited, as well as fishing with mechanized seine nets in the marine environment between the coastline and 3 nautical miles.

The law also implements the National Registry of Ancestral Traditional Fishermen and the National Registry of Artisanal Fishermen, and modifies the General Fisheries Law. From now on, extractive activities in the Grau Sea will be classified as follows:

• handmade. Activity carried out with a predominance of manual work for the collection of fishing gear or gear. It is done with the use of small boats or without them.
• Smaller scale. Activity carried out with small boats that use mechanized fishing equipment and systems to collect fishing gear or gear, without a predominance of manual labor.
• Larger scale. Activity carried out with larger fishing boats.

The Ministry of Production will have August for the publication of the regulation, a process in which artisanal fishermen have demanded their participation.