The quota has been growing and, with it, the business of catching and fattening bluefin tuna in traps off the Algarve. In 2020, the two companies that have structures to capture this species in the region, Real Atunara and Tunipex, will be able to capture «about 200 tons» of this species each, good news for the Portuguese trade balance, as the vast majority is sold – and at a good price – to Japan.
It was to see a tuna trap live that Ricardo Serrão Santos, Minister of the Sea, visited the Algarve on Friday. The member of the Government boarded the blue boat, which supports the armaments of Real Atunara, and visited the structures of this company based in Vila Real de Santo António, but also those of Tunipex, based in the Port of Olhão.
“I went to a tuna armada for the first time, I had never visited it. In other words, I was familiar with it from the literature, the media and even through legislative issues, when the bluefin quotas were discussed in Brussels, at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT). But I'm going back, to dive in there! It's the next step," he told the Sul Informação the member of Government, with a smile.
Ricardo Serrão Santos was, moreover, intimately involved in Portugal's struggle to obtain more licenses and more fishing quotas for bluefin tuna, as an MEP.
«We managed to increase the quota for Portugal. It was one of the things I was committed to when I was an MEP. I even went to the ICCAT meeting in Maraquexe. Then it was decided, definitively, later, in Madrid», he said.
This was an important step for Real Atunara and Tunipex to grow. "It was with satisfaction that I saw these two companies with a lot of dynamism and with a lot of employment", considered the Minister of the Sea.
In this sea shipment off the Algarve coast, Ricardo Serrão Santos hitched a ride with Real Atunara, a company that, on the same day, launched another boat to support the tuna traps, an investment of around 800 thousand euros.
It was on the margin of the take-down of the Don Paco vessel that the minister spoke with the Sul Informação.
“Bluefin tuna fetch extraordinary prices in eastern markets, namely in Japan and Korea. There is no reason to be decreasing the market value of this fish by turning it into canned fish, as happened for so long in the past. In the Azores, for example, bluefin is not used, the bonito is used, which is a fish with less economic value on the international market», he illustrated.
Miguel Socorro, administrator of Real Atunara, shares this vision about the potential of bluefin tuna.
«The Portuguese trade balance always shows losses. And there is no doubt that bluefin tuna represents an improvement in the balance in the fisheries sector. We have to take advantage of it. If it passes here on our coast, why shouldn't we capture it instead of buying it from Moroccans or others? Let's take advantage of what we have in Portugal», defended the businessman, in statements to our newspaper.
Today, following the gradual increase in the quota, "there is no doubt that catches are stabilized and that we are all living in peace".
«The share is divided between the two companies, Real Atunara and Tunipex. Right now, we have about 200 tons for each one. We believe that the quota will be maintained and even increased. Certainly ICCAT will increase it. That's why we built another support vessel», explained Miguel Socorro.
But, to achieve this peace, political and scientific work was necessary, so that a species that was the target of overfishing could recover and be recaptured without deep restrictions.
«There was, in the past, a strong decrease in the resource, it was a species that was in great crisis. It was close to being banned for sale. But this shows that, in fact, we cannot just see the misfortunes in the fisheries sector. There are huge successes in the recovery of fish stocks that, in the past, were depleted», considered the minister Ricardo Serrão Santos, who is himself an academic and researcher, with a lot of work in this area.
"There was a shift from a recovery plan to a management plan, in which we struggled to favor small-scale fishing, which is more traditional, namely in the outermost regions and in the armaments", he added.
However, the 2020 campaign is already underway.
«We have Armação do Barril, which is a little to Sotavento da Fuzeta. Then there is the Santa Maria, opposite Ilha Deserta. We, this year, are only working with Barril. We are not going to work with Santa Maria this year, to do the experiment if we have to relocate the frame a little further outwards, in order to better take advantage of the right tuna race», explained Miguel Socorro to Sul Informação.
This frame was designed "to catch tuna by law", that is, at the time when this species is heading to the Mediterranean to spawn, and the fish are, as such, more Fat.
The one in Barril, the only one that Real Atunara will keep in operation this year, "works with both right and wrong tuna [which is returning from the Mediterranean, after spawning]."
“At this moment, we have already caught 11 tons of tuna right in the Barrel. We are well ahead of last year», concluded Miguel Socorro.
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