The Director General of Fisheries of the Canary Islands Government, Orlando Umpiérrez, has denied that the regional Executive decided to change the way of capturing bluefin tuna in the archipelago to benefit Tenerife, as denounced by the Federation of Fishermen's Guilds of Las Palmas. "The Government of the Canary Islands does not work skewed towards any specific island," said Umpiérrez, who assured that it was the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries who made the decision to do so through an Olympic quota in the face of the "lack of consensus" of the sector in the archipelago, a lack of consensus that he has acknowledged was communicated to Madrid by the regional Executive.
"The sector is now highly divided, it is nothing new. While the Regional Federation of Fishermen's Guilds of the Canary Islands goes along one line, the Federation of Fishermen's Guilds of Las Palmas goes along another and all that final anger comes because the Ministry, which is responsible for managing the capture of the bluefin tuna quota allocated to the Canary Islands, has modified the resolution several times," said the Director General of Fisheries of the Government on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero
According to Umpiérrez, initially there was talk of an Olympic quota, which is that a departure date is set and all the boats, small and large, go out until the quota is finished, but then "the resolution was changed and modified and a quota was assigned per boat". This is what the Federation of Fishermen's Guilds of Las Palmas was demanding but, according to the Director General of Fisheries, this change generated "a stir in one part". And, in view of this, the Government of the Canary Islands informed the Ministry of "the lack of consensus on this measure". "And it is the Ministry itself that says verbatim in its own note that, in the absence of broad consensus, the same fishing of previous years is maintained pending the regulation of the fishery to be carried out for 2019," said Orlando Umpiérrez.
He states that in Lanzarote there is also a "large fleet"
In this way, Umpiérrez has denied the accusations of the Federation of Fishermen's Guilds of Las Palmas. "They attribute the fact that it was a visit by the Deputy Minister to Madrid that changed the Ministry's resolution from a unit quota to an Olympic quota. I wish the Government of the Canary Islands had that power, since we have been demanding a quota of at least 10% for years and they don't even listen to us," he said.
In addition, the Director General of Fisheries of the Canary Islands Government does not understand why the Federation of Fishermen's Guilds of Las Palmas said that the Olympic quota benefits "industrial boats" and therefore "Tenerife", which is where "those boats" are from. "I think there is a confusion in that press release. There are no industrial boats in the Canary Islands in tuna fishing," said Orlando Umpiérrez, who believes that whoever wrote that note made "a slip". "We believe that although boats up to 12 metres in length are called artisanal, the entire fleet, even those larger than 12 metres, practice the same fishing method, with hook and line, and we consider them all artisanal," said Umpiérrez, who also pointed out that there is also a "large fleet" in Lanzarote, such as Optuna's.
The Director General of Fisheries of the Canary Islands Government also believes that "in Lanzarote the issue has been quite confused". "It seems that being from Lanzarote leads us to a commitment to the island and when someone is part of the Government of the Canary Islands, they govern for all of the Canary Islands, not for one island. And that does not mean that it is to the detriment of the island of origin by favouring the others, far from it," said Umpiérrez, who also criticised the statement sent by the PSOE, in which it regretted the grievance committed by Clavijo to the artisanal fishing sector with bluefin tuna, conveying its support to the islands of Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. "They say that they agree with the demands, ignoring that the guilds of Fuerteventura are not in the provincial federation, but in the Canarian one," he said.
In favour of modifying the method of capture, but "with consensus"
In addition, Orlando Umpiérrez has assured that the Canary Islands Government itself and also "the majority of guilds on one side and the other" believe that "the management of the capture of the bluefin tuna quota must be modified" and move towards a unit quota like the rest of the autonomous communities. "This is what we are trying to achieve and what the majority want in practice," said the Director General of Fisheries of the Canary Islands Government, who, however, believes that it should be done "with consensus" among the guilds.
The Director General of Fisheries of the Canary Islands Government has also assured that there was a meeting in Tenerife "10 or 11 months ago", in which "all the fishermen agreed that sharing miseries was throwing them to fight" and agreed "that a unit distribution should be reached" but when the Canary Islands has a quota "from 500 tonnes", when "a sufficient quantity is reached so that all the boats have a decent quantity" "And we are still in the middle", said Orlando Umpiérrez, recalling that the quota for this year is 255. "Everyone wants to go to that distribution and what is being discussed is when to do it and the criteria," he said.
The Director General of Fisheries of the regional Executive is confident that in 2019, which is expected to modify the Royal Decree regulating fishing, "an increase in the quota will be achieved" and also "to have the distribution criteria" and in this and in achieving the "union" of the sector has insisted that it is in what he will work. In fact, Umpiérrez pointed out that on Monday he already met with the president and the secretary of the Federation of Fishermen's Guilds of Las Palmas so that there is "an opening of dialogue and greater communication between the different federations of guilds" and to reach "broad agreements and consensus", which he has affirmed that there are in the sector with respect to claiming "10% of the quota" but not in terms of distribution. "That has unleashed a war that we are trying to redirect and we hope that it will be so, that the Ministry, us and the sector can sit down and establish criteria for a unit distribution by island or by guild, as the sector decides," he concluded.
