The Fishermen's Association of San Ginés and Optuna 42 have issued a statement to denounce that the tuna pole fleet of Lanzarote, like the rest of the Canary Islands tuna pole fleets, has been "stopped for two weeks" without knowing if they will be allowed to continue fishing.
According to a statement, the General Secretariat of Fisheries, under the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, issued a resolution on July 31, by which on August 2 there was "a precautionary closure of the bigeye tuna fishery (tuna in the Canary Islands)" for the Canary Islands tuna pole fleet and the Canary Islands artisanal fleet, "because less than 10% of the assigned quota remained and until a count is made of all the catches made to check whether or not the total quota has been reached and, if there is still quota to be caught, reopen the fishery to consume what remains pending".
Thus, they state that they do not know if they are "going to be able to continue or not, while supporting the personnel data, provisions, etc." and that, in view of this, they have sent letters to the administration requesting information "without receiving a response in this regard":
"We will be forced to moor next week if they do not allow us to continue fishing," warn the Fishermen's Association of San Ginés and Optuna 42, who point out that "this is the third consecutive year that, due to the reduction of the assigned quota", they have had to "moor ahead of time".
"No company can stand being more than half a year without being able to work"
"This year we have only been able to work for five months (from March to August), having to be moored the other seven months of the year. No company can stand being more than half a year without being able to work", they say. "When we moor, many workers will not be entitled to unemployment benefits or aid. Therefore, the staff will go to look for work in other sectors because nobody can stand in a company that only works five months a year", they add.
"Not to mention that during the state of alarm due to Covid-19 our fleet did not moor, as fishing was considered an essential activity within the food chain, with the risk that they would not buy the catches made and obtain losses, also suffering the fall in prices", they continue.
For the Fishermen's Association of San Ginés and Optuna 42, "all this is a consequence of the cuts suffered in the quota assigned to Spain, in the unequal distribution of the same among the different fishing fleets, benefiting the purse seine fleet to the detriment of the Canary Islands fleet" and that the administration, against their requests, "did not allow the distribution of quota assigned to the Canary Islands pole fleet individually by vessel".