Peru's Congress overwhelmingly agreed on 17 October to allow the “legitimate use of force” by its armed forces to combat illicit maritime activities.
The legislative initiative, proposed by conservative legislator José Cueto, a retired admiral of the Peruvian Navy, received 100 votes in favor and two abstentions in the plenary of Congress.
According to Peruvian Head of the Congressional Committee for National Defense, Internal Order, Alternative Development, and the Fight Against Drugs Adriana Tudela the newly approved legislation serves to fill a gap in the country’s existing law governing the national maritime authority (DICAPI).
“The purpose [of DICAPI] is to combat, for example, problems such as illegal fishing and promote the detection of foreign vessels in the Peruvian sea that do not have the corresponding authorizations,” Tudela said.
Congressional approval came after several days of union protest throughout the country's ports. Fishers, mainly of jumbo flying squid, have voiced concern that the resource is scarce due to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activity from Chinese fleets in the Peruvian sea.
Some authorities have blamed climate change for the decrease in giant squid fishing, but in June, Peru’s Production Ministry (PRODUCE) announced it was preparing a decree that aims to strengthen the country’s fight against IUU fishing by foreign vessels in Peruvian waters.
The resulting decree is meant to control the entry of foreign vessels into Peruvian ports, and requires any foreign vessel looking to enter Peru to have a government-sanctioned satellite-tracking device onboard and activated, regardless of the reason for its entry.
PRODUCE also previously announced it is making arrangements to acquire two new maritime patrol boats with a budget of PEN 27.5 million (USD 7.3 million, EUR 6.8 million), which will be added to the country's existing fleet of four patrollers acquired between 2021 and 2023 under an agreement with the Peruvian Navy.
Though PRODUCE announced it was making moves to combat IUU fishing, in a recent joint session of the National Defense and Production Committees several legislators and former government officials were highly critical of what they saw as PRODUCE’s inaction, accusing the ministry of dragging its feet in applying the changes required to implement a new regulatory framework to combat IUU fishing.
For instance, Chinese vessels have continued to dock at Peruvian ports without complying with the requirement for satellite-tracking installation, the National Society of Artisanal Fisheries (SONAPESCAL) reported in a release.
Rafael Rey, former minister of PRODUCE and a former congressman, said that the ministry failed to respond to the complaints of legal non-compliance by Chinese vessels in installing satellite equipment.
“Other fleets have done this, [but] the Chinese fleet has simply refused to install the equipment. Are they looking to impose their will on us? As citizens, don't we have the right to protest?” he said in the SONAPESCAL release.
Likewise, Congresswoman Ruth Luque highlighted the case of 24 Chinese jiggers that set sail on 5 October from Peruvian ports without having installed the requisite satellite-tracking technology. The failure of Chinese vessels to comply with the law is a violation of Peru's sovereignty, she said, asking to see proof from DICAPI of the sanctions applied to defend the country from illegal fishing.
Fellow legislator Adriana Tudela questioned why Peru has allowed the entry of more than 300 Chinese-flagged vessels without the tech from May 2023 to date.
In response, PRODUCE Minister Sergio González Guerrero said that the new supreme decree sought to resolve an issue that has been ongoing for decades and that implementing the procedure was “not a simple issue.”
The jumbo flying squid fishery is Peru’s second-largest fishery behind the country’s anchovy fishery. It includes more than 25,000 fishers and 4,000 vessels landing approximately 500,000 pounds of squid annually. Peruvian jumbo squid harvests comprise 50 percent of total landings from the fishery, and approximately 90 percent of that total goes to international markets.
Despite the economic importance of jumbo flying squid to local communities and Peru as a whole, the national government has encountered obstacles in setting effective management, monitoring, and enforcement of the fishery in place. The species is highly migratory, which makes illegal fishing by distant-water fleets easier to carry out; lack of coordinated international management within the fishery exacerbates the problem.
Apart from government initiatives, private industry has teamed with NGOs to create a jumbo flying squid fishery improvement project (FIP), led by the Peruvian Chamber of Giant Squid (CAPECAL), various jumbo squid fishing associations, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
