Nervousness is spreading in the Ecuadorian tuna sector; concentrated in the port of Manta, about the recent decision by the IATTC (Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission) to implement a tuna-fishing ban again this year.
During the last meeting of the Commission, in Guatemala 2 weeks ago, the ban was accepted with 16 votes in favor and one against. The vote against the ban came from Ecuador, which strongly opposes to the prohibition on tuna fishing in the Eastern Pacific Ocean that will run from November 1st to December 31st of this year.
"This will be an even harder burden than Manta experienced last year..., the second tuna fleet of America is based here, after the Mexican, and therefore the veto of the catches leaves at least 6 000 families without work ", expressed Luigi Benincasa, president of the Ecuadorian Tuna Boat Owners Association (Atunec). The country tried to negotiate within the IATTC, but it was impossible. Ecuador’s national fishing authorities in the social meeting of the IATTC even exposed the consequences that this measure will carry even before and after it has gone into effect, but it did not help, according to Benincasa.
The tuna fishing ban will prevail in the fishing zone between five degrees North, the 10 degrees South and from 90 degrees the West to the 150 degrees East; which basically means the area with the EPO from the north of the border of Panama to the South of Peru. The resolution of the IATTC sanctions the unloading and commercial transactions involving tuna or originating products derived from activities of prohibited fishing. As of the moment that this measure begins, all the boats will have to be anchored within port. There are exceptions made for small pole fishing boats and for sports fishing. "What complicates the situation is that very few boats will enter the docks for maintenance this year, because the majority already did so last year ", explains Benincasa.
For the undersecretary of Fishing, Lucia Fernandez de Genna, the decision is a blow to the people in Ecuador because the prohibition is applied just in the months when the local people who depend on the fishing of the tuna, need the resources for their families most. But the bad news for the tuna sector does not stop there. Immediately after December 31st this year another prohibition will come into effect that will be applied the first two months of the 2004, according to Atunec. "This will be a sectored prohibition for all the fleets,†they added.
According to representatives of tuna processing sector in Manta "the combined losses of a two-month forced break reaches close to 30 million dollars for the entire country ", said Gustavo Núñez, owner and manager of Asiservy. Each prohibition creates an economic recession in this area; still more in a province where the tuna industry moves a good percentage of the local economy, he observed. The tuna boat owners complain because the prohibitions are not always fulfilled by all nations, which are part of the IATTC. "The prohibitions will be only effective and justified when all the member countries of the organization fulfill themâ€.
In 2002, fishing fleets of at least two S-American nations did not accept the opinion of the IATTC and continued to fish freely. The tuna boat crewmembers also acknowledge the ban with great displeasure. For Robert Santana, a high sea fisherman, the measurement is somewhat unjust and inopportune in regard to the dates in which they are applied. "If the prohibition is applied toward the end of the year, this complicates things for our families, in special for our children who will not be able to enjoy a treat for Christmas".
Source: Ecuadorian Press