We understand a sustainable fishery resource to be one that is captured considering the viability or permanence of the population in the long term, but also the health of the marine ecosystem. Thus, the ideal would be for the resource to be part of a healthy, well-managed population, and for it to be extracted in such a way as to minimize incidental capture of other species, discarding, and the impact on the habitat.
When species are exploited without knowing their population status, when they are discarded due to lack of a market and not reported, or when scientific recommendations are not met on how much to extract and what size, these resources can over- explode and in some cases collapse.An example of this has been the case of common hake. Although today the hake seems to be recovering, juveniles continue to be caught and one of its populations that occupies the north of the Argentine Sea is still overexploited.
For many resources, we have enough information to allow scientific evaluation. This analysis of the current state of the resource and of the catch that would allow it to continue to be exploited over time, and which is called the cash evaluation,It is carried out by the National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development (INIDEP). Thus, INIDEP recommends to the authority (the Federal Fisheries Council) biologically acceptable catches and the measures that accompany good management. Fishermen for their part should catch what they are allowed and accurately report it.
But not only a sustainable fishery should ensure the permanence of the population over time, but also damage the species with which it interacts and the habitat as little as possible while fishing maneuvers are carried out.
For this, there are selectivity devices that modify the fishing gear and allow the escape of certain species and small specimens that must remain in the population to reproduce. There are also devices capable of avoiding the capture of groups with major conservation problems such as sharks and birds, mammals, and sea turtles. There are also fishing gears that have a strong impact on the seabed, altering the habitat, while others do so minimally. Unfortunately, selectivity devices are still not used in our country, with very few exceptions.
This ecosystem viewof fisheries management also attempts to incorporate the social variable. Thus, what is intended is to ensure that these resources are extracted causing the least possible damage to the ecosystem, generating the greatest benefit for the people and valuing the work of fishermen, considered one of the riskiest not only because of the conditions in which they work. , but because of the economic uncertainty of the activity .
Due to the concern of the scientific community, non-governmental organizations, and consumers, the need arose to know and disseminate about the sustainability of fishery resources.
Thus, today there are several initiatives in the world that evaluate the functioning of each one of the fisheries, cataloging them so that the buyer and the consumer know how their fish has arrived from the sea. One of them is the certification of fisheries carried out, for example, by the Marine Stewardship Council ( MSC ) or the monitoring of the capture process by organizations such as SeaChoice and Friend of the Sea, among others.
Knowing how the fish that we bring to our table is extracted implies that we follow its traceability, a complex task in the case of marine products, but it helps us to be able to choose and reward those fishermen and intermediaries committed to the sustainability of resources.
In order to have sustainable fisheries in our country, we still have a long way to go . Of many of the species that are traded, we know little about their population status (for example, southern cod, spider crab). Of many that are marketed, we know that more is extracted than is renewed annually (for example, catfish, angelfish, pollock). Many boats do not have observers on board, who are technicians who record what is caught, and only have the information provided by the captain through fishing statistics. And above all, the vision of caring for the marine ecosystem is just beginning to be taken into account.
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