Fishermen from Olhãopesca go out to sea this Friday, for the last time this year, to fish for sardines. The ban on fishing for this delicacy, due to the exhaustion of the quota allocated to the shipowners' organization, comes into force at midnight tomorrow, September 24th.
With the exhaustion of the quota in the area covered by Olhãopesca, revealed to the Sul Informação by Miguel Cardoso, responsible for the organization, the Algarve has no quota for 2015, since the shipowners of Barlapescas (Portimão) have also been stopped since august 28.
At the time of the exhaustion of the quota by Barlapescas, Miguel Cardoso told the Sul Informação that, in Olhão, the ban would also be “for days”. It arrived two weeks later.
The quota allocated to Olhãopesca, for the period between June and October 31, was 436 tonnes, and, according to the official, «it was already expected that, at the end of August, we would have to stop».
With the ban on Algarvian vessels, sardines in the region «starts to come, first, from other parts of the country, still with a quota, such as Costa Vicentina and Sesimbra, but then comes from Spain and Morocco, frozen, and with much lower quality », explains Miguel Cardoso.
For the year, there may be a drastic reduction in sardine catch quotas, in the order of 90%, taking into account the opinion of the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES).
This possibility worries the Algarve shipowners who say they cannot do more than what was done in 2015. «What we are asking is that in 2016 the quotas are not reduced even further», concludes Miguel Cardoso.
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