Exploratory fishing advances in favor of the industry

Minutes after the meeting between Peru and Argentina began, around 9:20 pm, the Ministry of Production (Produce) published the ministerial resolution authorizing the start of the fishing exploratory starting this Saturday for five calendar days, as advanced by La República.

The decision had already been made known after the main representatives of the fishing industry met with the highest authorities of Produce and Imarpe.

What the numbers say

On August 2, this same activity was authorized with a view to opening a first anchovy capture season, which was ultimately cancelled.

The measure generated controversy, not only because it gave the companies a few hours of preparation to begin the capture, but because it was authorized for a period of 10 days and was a “failure,” in the words of specialists, since it had to be closed days before. due to the high presence of juvenile specimens.

But for the sector, this fact alone helped to raise its numbers. The fishing GDP in August reached almost 50% due to the landing of 182,785 metric tons (MT) of anchovy, 418% more than the same month in 2022, according to the INEI.

Meanwhile, the Economic Studies Department of Scotiabank Peru highlights how the “atypical” exploratory fishing boosted primary manufacturing, and contributed 0.1% to the global result of the GDP of August.

This same entity, in a previous report, projects that if a second season were opened, 660,000 MT would be captured, a level similar to the 2017 campaign, the last year in which a phenomenon occurred. The boywell below the average of 1.9 million MT registered between 2018 and 2022.

Against the appeal

For the biologist and professor at the National University Federico Villarreal, Edwin Vegas, these decisions are leading to the “population collapse” of the anchovy, with the complicity of Imarpe, which, knowing that exploratory fishing is a research method, is directing it to a purely commercial objective.

“There is no scientific report (to support the resolution), there is no estimated quota, there is no limit on boats; and obviously the fisherman who has not won all year will have to go out fishing and work hard,” he says.

Vegas recalls that Enfen has reported that warm waters will occur until December (when the anchovy lives in moderately cold waters), making the arrival of El Niño “inexorable” (see infographic).