Starting this week, Chile is requiring “full traceability” and certification from foreign commercial fishing boats delivering seafood to its ports.
The latest amendment to the country’s Fisheries Act, which requires certification from auditing entities accredited by Sernapesca, is intended to verify landings data, according to Chile’s Undersecretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture (Subpesca).
"International markets are increasingly demanding regarding the quality of fishery products they buy. Increasing number of countries require certified products and with full traceability, allowing them to know the entire route of the product, from the area where it was harvested, until it reaches the shelves of its supermarkets, through landing sites, processing plants and transportation,” Chile’s National Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture Juan Luis Ansoleaga said in a statement.
In addition, Subpesca lowered 2014 quotas for sardines, anchovies, hake, and certain shrimp species. In southern Chile (regions V-X), anchovy quotas were drastically reduced from 120,000 metric tons (MT) in 2013 to 42,200 MT this year. In the same regions, the sardine quota was slashed from 605,000 MT in 2013 to 373,000 MT in 2014.
In northern Chile (regions XV-II), the anchovy quota was reduced from 800,000 MT to 750,000 MT. Plus, the hake quota in central Chile was cut from 40,000 MT in 2013 to 19,000 MT in 2014.
The quotas are necessary as part of a long-term fisheries management strategy that ensures that Chile is producing sustainable seafood and allowing its resources to recover, according to Pablo Galilea, undersecretary of Fisheries and Aquaculture.
“We have a new institutional framework that will allow the recovery of resources and that will lead to future to have more and better jobs and a greater contribution to the economy of mining and fishing. We have to have a long-term view and understand that only these actions will enable us to effectively recover fishery resources,” Galilea said in a Subpesca statement.
Past mackerel quotas are proof that the quota system is working, Galilea said. Subpesca increased the mackerel quota to 298,000 MT in 2014, up from from 250,000 MT in 2013.
