Peru has 1,043 artisanal vessels registered to date with the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO) – a number 33.6 times higher than the 31 it had registered in 2023.
According to Innovations for Ocean Action (I4OA) Fisheries Specialist Iván Gómez, progressive installation of Peruvian government-required SISESAT Satellite Tracking System technology has been key to the fleet’s expansion into international waters.
“Today, more than 3,000 artisanal vessels have SISESAT equipment on board, driven by regulatory reforms that have facilitated their access. This advance not only strengthens monitoring, control, and surveillance but also improves safety on the high seas and enables registration with the SPRFMO,” he said.
The growth of Peru’s SPRFMO-registered boats positions the country as an increasingly relevant player in the squid fishery in international waters, according to Elsa Vega, who is the president of the National Society of Artisanal Fisheries of Peru (SONAPESCAL).
“This achievement is the result of the sustained effort during the last years by shipowners, trade associations, and fishing cooperatives, as well as the Ministry of Production,” she said, adding that her organization has supported the effort via information sessions and telephone lines to help guide those looking to register their boats.
Though the fleet has made big strides in committing to the tracking technology, further work is required for more vessels to get properly registered, Gómez said.
“Only 34 percent of this artisanal fleet has been effectively registered, while the remaining 66 percent, despite meeting the requirements, have not yet been registered, evidencing a gap that requires immediate action from the state,” he said.
Vega said the country’s artisanal fishing fleet now faces a twofold challenge internally: continue registering the artisanal fleet in the SPRFMO and steadily incorporating the fleet under International Maritime Organization (IMO) rules in order to obtain each vessel’s IMO number – an international identifier required to operate on the high seas.
“In the short term, the country must submit to the SPRFMO an IMO implementation plan that is in line with the reality of the sector; in the medium term, facilitate registration and strengthen competitiveness in international waters,” she said.
Meanwhile, there is a significant external threat that Peru’s fleet must also address: China’s massive distant-water fishing fleet.
“Today, we’ve surpassed 1,000 registered vessels, compared to approximately 650 authorized vessels from China. However, this advantage in number contrasts with operational capacity. While the Peruvian fleet barely exceeds 25,000 [metric] tons [MT] of authorized storage capacity, the Chinese fleet concentrates more than 600,000 MT,” Alfonso Miranda, president of the Committee for the Sustainable Management of the Giant Squid of the South Pacific (CALAMASUR), said. “Although Peru leads in presence, it still faces the challenge of strengthening its operational capacity and other factors such as crew safety.”
CALAMASUR has been outspoken in urging more Chinese cooperation to drive change in the South Pacific squid fishery.
Miranda has said previously SPRFMO was created to prevent unregulated fishing in international waters, but that objective has not been met, explaining that in the 13 years of the organization’s existence, China has caught about 5 million MT of giant squid without scientific advice to guide those totals. Between 2020 and 2024, China has increased its annual landings to more than 400,000 MT, surging nearly 65 percent compared to the previous decade and displacing Peru as the world's leading producer of the resource.
While artisanal fishers in coastal countries must conform to quotas based on scientific criteria, China's fleet of 671 large-scale vessels have been allowed to operate without restrictions, Miranda said.
Recent research presented by the Chilean Fisheries Development Institute (IFOP) has warned of signs of deterioration in the health of the giant squid population distributed in international waters.
As a result, in February, more than 50 organizations from Latin America, North America, and Europe presented a joint statement to SPRFMO, demanding urgent measures to improve the conservation and management of the giant squid fishery on the high seas and to rein in China’s distant-water fishing fleet.
