This week, the Ministry of Production of Peru confirmed the Virgen de las Mercedes and Virgen del Carmen vessels in the Registry that enable them to fish in international waters of the South Pacific.
“CALAMASUR has permanently promoted the inclusion of our artisanal fleet in the vessel registry of the South Pacific Regional Organization for Fisheries Management (SPRFMO); However, along the way, we came across that Peruvian legislation did not allow access to the registry by artisans and that there were some requirements of the SPRFMO that were not possible for artisanal vessels to meet, ”says Alfonso Miranda, president of CALAMASUR.
Indeed, in December 2019, the artisanal shipowners of the fishing cooperatives, members of CALAMASUR, initiated a request to be included in the said registry. On that occasion, they received a negative answer; However, this fact made it possible to make visible the need to take more steps to achieve their inclusion.
Paradoxically, while the distant-water Asian jigging fleets have been growing rapidly and without major controls, Peru has been limited in legally accessing the capture of the resource in the SPRFMO area. Fortunately, this year modifications were made to Supreme Decree No. 002-2015-PRODUCE and to the management and conservation measure 05-2021 of the SPRFMO so that the access of Peruvian artisans materializes.
Joan Ramos, owner of the first two vessels to obtain this recognition and member of the Association of Artisanal Fishing Shipowners Mar de Paita - APAMARPA, points out that he is proud and happy to be the first fishing owner to have this authorization and, likewise, invites the rest of the shipowners to join the Registry.
“I would like to invoke artisanal squid fishing owners to carry out their procedures so that their boats, like mine, are promptly recognized by this important regional organization. In my experience, I can tell you that the requirements to be met were not difficult to achieve, that the Ministry of Production dealt with my case thoroughly and that I received technical assistance from CALAMASUR throughout the process. There are no excuses for a single boat to be left out ”.
In response to the need to facilitate the registration of Peruvian vessels in the OROP-PS vessel registry, CALAMASUR has made a memory aid with all the useful information to be able to complete the PRODUCE forms successfully.
Finally, Alfonso Miranda stressed that he hopes that this initiative will be an incentive that motivates authorities and shipowners to accelerate the path to the formalization of fisheries. Now, this is no longer only a matter of national interest, but it is also international. "If we did not advance in the registration of our fleet, Peru would make the mistake of not generating a historical record of squid fishing in international waters and, with this, it would limit its possibilities of access to a future quota given by this organization."
Download the memory aid here: