The president of the Association of Industrial Fisheries of the Region of Bío Bío AG(Asipes), Luis Felipe Moncada, ensures "the industry is facing the worst crisis in the past two decades."
According to the leader, the fishing industrialists are affected by the absence of horse mackerel, sardine, anchovy and hake.
In addition, Asipes estimates the Chilean fishing industry has lost a thousand jobs during 2013.
"There is a very delicate situation for the industry. Today we have seen that the sardine, the main raw material for the manufacture of fishmeal is not available," Moncada stressed.
However, the entrepreneur believes that the sardine fishery could grow from 100,000 tonnes to 600,000 tonnes annually in two years if a reasonable quota is set in 2014, the newspaper La Tercera reported.
"It is difficult for Chile to once more have volumes like those in the past but if from 600,000 tonnes to 700,000 tonnes of horse mackerel were captured by the end of the decade, if it were possible to maintain a stable fishing volume reaching 600,000 tonnes of sardine, if around 150,000 or 180,000 tonnes of hoki were caught, and the hake were no longer eaten by the cuttlefish, the industry could have a secure future in the long term," he stated.
In the first half of the year, 132,035 tonnes of sardine were caught while in the last five years, the lowest figure for the January-June period was recorded in 2010, with 559,671 tonnes.
Maximiliano Alarma, head of the Fisheries Management Division of the Undersecretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture (Subpesca), said: "This sharp decline is the largest in the last decade and is associated with environmental phenomena which would have been difficult to predict," Pulso reported.
With regard to horse mackerel, in 1995 four million tonnes were caught, and this year the authorized capture quota is 250,000 tonnes.
In connection with the sardines, "the value of what has been stopped producing due to lower catches has not been quantified; the price per ton is different each year but it is a figure that is not inferior to USD 100 million," Moncada added.
In view of this situation, Subpesca decided to set the closure period of the sardine three weeks earlier, a measure which the executive director of the NGO Oceana, Alex Muñoz, considers insufficient to ensure sustainable fisheries. (tuy nhiên theo ông…không đủ để đảm bảo nghề cá bền vững)
On being asked by La Tercera on the possibility of extending the shortage crisis, Moncada stressed: "If there is good fisheries management, which is reasonable as to the quota for 2014 and reasonable when deciding to lift the ban on sardines when size is appropriate (12 centimetres), the sardine could recover by 2015 and return to a regime that is closer to normal (600,000 tonnes annually)."
He added: "In the case of horse mackerel, the hope is that if we’re fortunate within a couple of years we will be able to see a significant recovery. This requires a proper administration of the Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (RFMO) and the fact that Peru can be part of it and respects the rules that are established.