Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) is praising the forming of a new industry group in South America to work toward sustainable squid production in one of the world’s most significant giant squid fishing regions.
The group, calling itself the Committee for the Sustainable Management of the Southern Pacific Jumbo Flying Squid (CALAMASUR) is the product of a workshop held on 22 and 23 January in Lima, Peru. SFP lent logistical support to the workshop, which included representatives of the artisanal and industrial fishing, processing sector and academia from Peru, Chile and Ecuador.
The participants agreed on common positions regarding the science and management of giant squid at the regional fisheries management organization (RFMO) level, and they developed a position statement that was sent to delegates at the South Pacific RFMO requesting key policy changes. Among other concerns, the statement asked for better compliance and enforcement in international waters, as well as the creation of a giant squid scientific working group.
“There is an absence of regulation that ensures the sustainability of giant squid in international waters of the South Pacific,” said Alfonso Miranda, CALAMASUR’s President. “Also, the control of fishing players in international waters and the operation of foreign-flagged fishing vessels in jurisdictional waters is inadequate, facilitating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.”
As per FAO 2014 data, the giant squid fishery is the single most important squid fishery in the world, accounting for over 30 percent of global squid volumes. Chile and Peru alone caught almost 67 percent of the total volume in 2014, so the group believes a consensus of this nature by the principal squid fishing nations in the region will lead to more sustainable squid production in a fishery that provides livelihoods to fishing communities along the coasts of all three countries.
“It is not a secret that ocean resources are agonizing and dwindling every day,” said Pascual Aguilera, President, National Coordinating Group for Jumbo Flying Squid Fishers (Coordinadora Nacional de Jibieros, Chile). “Countries have not made all the needed efforts to ensure the present and future health of the giant squid, a resource that expand along international waters, and the sea is not an inexhaustible source of resources. For this reason, CALAMASUR is so important. We have got together to work alongside each other to ensure the livelihoods of many fishing communities along the Pacific coast of South America that depend on this resource, and to keep contributing to food security at the global level.”
Download the statement here.
Contact: Sean Murphy, Director of Communications