Tunacons: Unión Europea exige a Ecuador una Ley de Pesca moderna

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Tunacons: European Union demands Ecuador a modern Fisheries Law

The European Union has shown a “yellow card” (warning) to Ecuador’s fishing exports, which lack an updated law. Photo: Fresh Fish of Ecuador, Cía, Ltda. Taken from Google image bank.

Date: 1 November, 2019Author: REVISTA DE MANABÍ0 Comments

The organization that groups private fishing companies in Ecuador, Tunacons, makes known, through a public statement of this date, that the “yellow card” (warning) of the European Union (EU) against the import of Ecuadorian fishing is due to the lack of a modern national Fisheries Law, because the current one dates from 1978 and does not respond to the current requirements of the world fishery, much more developed and sophisticated.

Tunacons considers that the EU’s warning is to recommend that, within a determined period of time, the Ecuadorian fishing legal framework be improved, eliminating any possibility of commercializing products from illegal fishing. However, he stresses, it is important to say that under no circumstances can it be admitted – up to now – that any company in Ecuador has incurred in these illegal practices.

He explains that the fishing inspection and monitoring schemes in the country have been strengthened in the last 15 years, in a gradual and specialized way, going from 7 or 10 inspectors to more than 200 at national level, to control and monitor the landings in the main places of the Ecuadorian coastal profile. He adds that investment was made in a satellite control system, which is mandatory for the entire industrial fleet, and there has also been investment in having a strong traceability control (identification of origin and the different stages of production and distribution) of fishery products, which guarantees a positively functional management system.

Tunacons indicates that parallel to all that, Ecuador ratified in 2017 the international Port State Agreement, assuming an important commitment against “Illegal Unregulated and Unregulated” (IUU) fishing, an instrument that obliges the country to strengthen its control schemes for international fishing fleets.

He believes that the European Union is considering that the weakest part of the Ecuadorian fisheries administration is the legal framework, which is very old since it dates back to 1978 and, therefore, the scheme of sanctions and penalties is not in line with the strong growth of industrial fishing operations. So, what we are looking for is to strengthen this scheme, through the enforcement of a new fishing law.

Improvement and control actions

The Tunacons communiqué refers that for more than a year Ecuador has been working on having a National Plan for industrial tuna fishing (PAN Tuna), which defines the strategies in order to strengthen all the processes for the sustainability of the resource and the industry. This is being done by the national government through the Ministry of Production, Foreign Trade, Investment and Fisheries, in coordination with Tunacons and with the participation of business associations and other actors in the production chain.

It clarifies that a National Action Plan is a technical and specific guide, which serves the governments to orient short, medium and long term actions, guaranteeing an efficient administration of the fishery, which contemplates all its components: monitoring, information gathering, scientific research, reduction of impacts on ecosystems, control and sanction system, technological changes, etc. In this way, the future of the fishery is planned, because the plan is adaptive and can be reviewed and reformed periodically in an advisory council that is up to date with what can be improved along the way, according to new provisions at the national level or the IATTC (International Tropical Tuna Commission).

Ecuador, according to Tunacons, is the first – and so far the only IATTC member country – to launch a management strategy through the implementation of a tuna NPOA. There are already examples at the national level that Ecuador has implemented similar plans, being the only one in the region to have a management plan on FAD management (type of lure to attract schools of tuna), PAN Dorado, PAN Camarón Pomada and PAN Tiburón.

After a year of work, the organization assures, the process will be completed in the next few weeks and the Ministry of Production will issue an Agreement that formalizes the Plan and the schemes for its proper implementation.

Tunacons closes its communiqué expressing that it is optimistic that “we will soon have a new legal framework for fishing in Ecuador, (…) with a set of strategies for tuna fishing”, which will guarantee an integral management scheme for the fishery and make it more competitive in world markets.