The Chilean Navy and the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service (Sernapesca) remain alert for the passage of a fishing fleet of Chinese origin that is currently moving from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, crossing the Exclusive Economic Zone of our country.
It would be around 450 ships that would pass through Chile, out of a total of 600 that are now in Argentina.
What did the Navy say?
“Given the concern that this means, the vessels are controlled and supervised through the satellite surveillance system used by Sernapesca and the Chilean Navy, excluding until now that they have carried out fishing activities in our national space,” the military institution indicated.
NavÃo Litoral Sigfrido RamÃrez, deputy director of the Directorate of Maritime Interests and Aquatic Environment (Dirinmar), referred to the commission of possible illegal fishing, ensuring that no act against the norm has been registered.
“This monitoring has been going on for several decades, it is a permanent work done by the Navy through the Maritime Operations Security Directorate to maintain this panorama and in these monitoring years we have not recorded, regarding this fleet in particular, anything illegal. fishing or unauthorized in our Exclusive Economic Zone,” he said.
What did Sernapesca say?
“We are working together and precisely during this month, which is so important, the Month of the Sea, we wanted to take control and monitoring of this Chinese fleet, which, as you know, is now in Argentina, this fishing. it’s red squid,” said Sernapesca national director Soledad Tapia.
“It is an important fleet, there are about 600 ships, in front of Argentina; they pass towards the Pacific Ocean, reaching as far as the Galapagos Islands, between 250 and 450 of these 600 ships. Last year, for example. , we had about 200 ships, as in 2021, but we are still aware that this number could increase,” added authorities.
Regarding the sanctions that can be applied if a ship carries out irregular fishing activities, La Tapia explained that “The General Law of Fisheries and Aquaculture, in article 115, indicates up to a maximum of 400 UTM for each gross registration ton of the ship which if we consider that this Chinese vessel they can have up to 900 tons of gross register, multiplied by 400, it gives billions of pesos for each fine.”
