For most businesses, things are too tight to splash out money on new equipment – it’s a struggle just to pay the bills, yet the new EU regulations wants the Motril fishing fleet to do just that, so it’s the end of the line.
On the 18th of October, the moratorium expires which closed off the fishing grounds, but coupled to this date is the EU fishery requirement that the fishermen change the type of nets that they use – an economical impossibility.
The Patrón Mayor de la Cofradia de Pescadores de Motril (the Head of the Motril Fisherman’s association) Ignacio López Cabrera invites the ‘decision makers’ to get out of their comfy offices and come down and see how small fishing boats work. He has put his particular boat at their disposition for precisely this purpose.
The new net requirements have thinner strings, which means they break more easily, loosing the catch – this is just one setback. The main setback is that it will cost 13,000 euros and nobody has that sort of money available.
So, from the 18th the Motril fishing fleet will remain tied up because, from that day on, inspectors will be out to make sure that they have the new nets. No new nets, no fishing; no fishing – join the unemployed queue.
“We have to make the Central Government see that they must defend us in Europe,” says boat-owner and skipper, López Cabrera, adding, “We’re not industrial-sized fishing ships so they can’t tie us to the same regulations as them.”
He complains that Spain has caved in whilst Italy and France have better defended their small fishing boats so that they can use a different size trawling nets to the industrial fishing ships. “People are making decision on issues they don’t know about, ” he complained, adding, “They attribute a destructive capacity to our nets that they simply don’t have – besides, we’re more concerned than anybody when it comes to protecting our fishing grounds.”
As if the new regulations weren’t enough, the price of diesel increases continually and the price of the fish diminishes at an equally alarming rate (probably due to fish farming output).
The only bright point on the horizon is a project involving the University de Cádiz, in collaboration with the Centre for Fishing Development, concerning plastic waste in the sea. The Motril fishermen are looking for any way to prevent having to take their boats to dock for scrapping and to keep their way of life alive.
(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia – Photo: Eloy Morales/mirablogdegranada.blogspot.com.es)