Brussels, 04/02/.2016 (Agence Europe) - Spain and Portugal held discussions on Tuesday 2 February with Director General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries at the European Commission João Aguiar Machado with a view to possibly increasing fishing opportunities for sardines during the course of the year.
Over the last few years, Spain and Portugal have implemented a joint management plan limiting annual catches of sardines to help the stock, which has been in very poor condition, recover.
Aguiar Machado met Spanish Fisheries Secretary Andrés Hermida Trastoy and his Portuguese counterpart José Apolinario to discuss appropriate measures, “supported by science”, to help the Iberian sardine stock biomass recover from historically low levels, the Commission says. The sardine fishery is of the utmost importance to a large number of coastal communities in the two member states.
For the first half of 2016, Portugal and Spain have agreed to limit sardine catches to below the precautionary level of 14,000 tonnes advised by the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) for 2016. At the same time, encouraging signs of an increased number of young sardines (juveniles) allowing the biomass to recover have been reported by IPMA (Portuguese Marine Research Institute) scientists. “If this positive development is confirmed by the spring scientific campaigns, ICES may advise on a different catch level for 2016”, the Commission says. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)