The recreational fisherman must declare all their catches through an APP

To fulfill the new european regulation, that recently received the approval by the Eurocámara, the Balearic Islands wants to extend to all recreational fishing to use the digital application that is being used to declare the fish catches in the marine reserves.

This was explained by the  general director of Fisheries, Antoni Grau, in statements to Europa Press, in relation to the new European rules on fisheries control, which, among other new features, will oblige recreational fishing to declare catches. The aim of this European regulation is to better control the impact of fishing on natural resources.

Many measures of the new text will be applied gradually, giving to the Member States and the fishing fleets sufficient time to adapt. It is the case of a declaration of catches in  recreational fishing, which will be obligatory after two years of the entry into force of the regulation. Having now been approved by the European Parliament, once formally adopted by the Council, the Regulation will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal.

Grau has pointed out that this regulation “it is not caught by surprise” to the Balearic Islands, this is something that the president of the Cofradías de Pescadores, Domingo Bonnín, agrees with. The new rules will not involve major changes for the professional fleet, because the stricter measures affect larger vessels than those operating in the Islands, but also because many of the new features introduced by the European rules have already been applied for years in the Balearics. "We have been ahead of the curve," commented Grau.

In this way, for the archipelago, the most significant aspect will be the declaration of catches by recreational fishermen. At this point it is worth mentioning that in the Community it is already compulsory for recreational fishing to declare their catches within the marine reserves, which represent 25% of the coastline. For this purpose, recreational fishermen in the Islands have a mobile application, which will now have to be updated to adapt to European rules.

The director general confirmed that this will be the line of work, although it will be necessary to adapt the computer system so that it can absorb a much larger volume of data, given that in the Balearics there are 12,000 recreational fishing licences linked to boats, and if the individual and spearfishing licences are added, the figure is around 45,000.

In this sense, Grau pointed out that they want the data to be obtained through a digital system that allows them to be worked with later, and thus be able to extract valuable information for public decision-making. "We have to show that what you force fishermen to do is useful for something," he reasoned.

Grau said that the Government is already working on to create a participation and consultation body specializing in recreational fisheries, a fishing advice for this segment of activity, where address the monitoring system with stakeholders. The regulation that will create this body is in the process of being drafted and could be ready by early 2024.

For his part, the president of the Fishermen's Guilds stressed that, in addition to enabling the system, the administration will have to control that recreational fishermen truly declare what they have caught. Bonnín believes that control in the mooring ports could be a more effective and simpler way than inspection at sea.

The president of the Cofradias pointed out that local fishermen supply the market with 10% of the product, while the remaining 90% of what is consumed comes from outside. "We cannot compete on quantity and we have to compete on quality. This means that we have very well-conserved resources, because if you only catch 10% of what you consume, the stock benefits in the long run," reflected Bonnín.

Domingo Bonnín has criticized the excessive bureaucratisation of the fishing activities, that “for the big fleets it is easy because they have space and offices”, but with the fleets of the islands “one needs an administrative assistant only to do the half of the things”.