A group of lawmakers from the National Action Party (PAN) requested the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (Sagarpa) not to issue permits to foreign vessels fishing for the jumbo flying squid (Dosidicus gigas) in the Gulf of California.
The legislators explained that the purpose of the request is to prevent the overexploitation of this cephalopod.
The president of the Senate Committee on Fisheries, Salvador Lopez Brito, said they also asked the authority to report to Congress on the basis on which the permit was granted to the Japanese vessel Wakashi Maru 87 to catch the jumbo flying squid.
The lawmaker stressed that the National Fisheries Institute (Inapesca) considers that fishing for this resource in the area has made it possible to have the economic recovery of the coastal regions, and it is the leading alternative fishery in the closed season on shrimp in Sonora, Baja California and Baja California Sur.
According to Lopez Brito, the 32 producers of the Squid Product System of Baja California reject the action of the National Commission of Aquaculture and Fisheries (Conapesca) to grant a permit to capture the jumbo flying squid to the Wakashi Maru 87.
The senator noted that the vessel will overexploit the jumbo flying squid fishery, because the production is low and the size it captures is four to six kilograms per specimen when the normal size would be from 12 to 14 kg.
According to the available data, in 2011 a total of 17,639 tonnes of jumbo flying squid was caught while last year, it was 10,057 tonnes, that is to say 43 per cent less.
Lopez Brito believes that Sagarpa should cancel the permits in federal waters in the northwest of the country to any foreign vessel that does not comply with the General Law of Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture.
The request was also signed by Senators Hector Larios Cordova and Ernesto Ruffo Appel, of the PAN.
Furthermore, more than 70 fishermen organised a demonstration in the Regional Fisheries Research Centre (CRIP) to protest against the operation of the Japanese fishing vessel owned by the company Atún Mex SA.
The fishermen argue that a fishing license was granted to the firm without taking into account the impact that its operation will have, reported Ensenada.net.
Product Squid System Committee Chair, Bertha Martinez Villalobos, stated they will continue with the political, legal and demonstration actions in defense of the resources that constitute the livelihood for families in Ensenada.
The above mentioned senators “will struggle for Conapesca to present the arguments taken as a basis for granting the permit because it is a foreign vessel, and, on the other hand, they are asking for the permit expiration because it breaches some of the Mexican laws,” he said.
One of these laws, he stated, “sets that the Inapesca has to make a declaration of the product excess for them to be able to grant such permits, which has not happened.”
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