Are we witnessing the last days of Motril’s fishing sector? Because the crisis and changing times appear to be sinking what waves and rocks could not.
Today, Motril Port has a grande total of 90 fishermen still eking out a diminishing living, whereas back in the mid 90’s there were 800.
Before the onslaught of the crisis there were 32 fishing boats, leaving port in the early morning to spend long hours at sea, returning in the evening – sometimes staying out for several days to work more distant and perilous fishing grounds.
Those 32 boats had dropped by a third to 22 by the beginning of this year and during these past eight months a further nine have been sent to the marine scrap yard. So, there are only 13 left of the original 32.
The adversaries have been a drop in prices, on the one hand, and new regulations that have forced the skippers to spend money that they did not have to bring the nets into line with the European Union regulations, on the other. On top of that, there is the rising cost in fuel.
Another factor is that as there are fewer boats fishing out of the port, there are fewer buyers in the port warehouses and fewer buyers means fewer bids. The result is that some boats prefer the added fuel costs of taking their catch to Málaga Port to fetch a better price… swings and roundabouts.
On dry land, in the Motril lonja (warehouse were the catches are auctioned), the drop in catches means that the amount of money that is passing through the lonja is dropping, too; compare 2007 when 7.2m euros passed through the lonja, to 2013 when the figure had dropped to 4.6m euros – God knows what the 2014 figure will be – some fear around 3m euros only.
The reason that the boats are being scrapped is because with the subvention that the boat owners receive for sending the boats to scrap it makes sense to take the plunge and cut your losses. If every time you put to sea you use 750 euros of diesel then there are times when it costs you money to run the boat – it’s soul destroying.
And we have said above, the EU can’t seem to make its mind up what it want’s; ten years ago the EU urged boat owners to scrap their wooden fishing boats and buy modern ones… and now they’re giving subventions for scrapping those same boats, which cost around a million a piece (50% in purchase grants). So, if you can’t pay the bank back on the loan to purchase them, the lure of throwing in the towel by accepting a scrap-yard grant is the only way out.
So is it all doom and gloom? Well, our Motril fishermen came up with the idea of using the boats and nets to clean up the sea off our beaches and the politicians love it and are urging other ports to do the same.
The Motril fishermen might not have many boats; but they’ve got plenty of ideas; all they need are the people with the know-how to see them to fruition.
(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)