- Two legislative proposals seek to amend a law the Peruvian Congress passed unanimously in 2023 that recognizes artisanal fishers and promotes the protection of the sea within 5 nautical miles of shore, an area crucial for the reproduction of marine species.
- The proposals are being debated in Congress even as approval of the 2023 law’s regulations remains in limbo.
- Proponents of the proposals say they will strengthen fishing law in favor of artisanal fishers.
- But many artisanal fishers and conservation groups oppose the proposals, which would allow fishing boats carrying mechanized and nonselective gear to fish within 3 miles of the coast.
In early April, 13 leaders representing more than 60 artisanal fishing unions traveled to the city of Lima from different parts of the Peruvian coast. Their aim: stopping the approval of two bills they say put the Peruvian sea at risk and violate the rights of artisanal fishers.
The proposals, presented by members of Congress Lady Camones of Alliance for Progress and Darwin Espinoza of Popular Action, both conservative political parties, seek to modify Law No. 31749. This law recognizes traditional and artisanal fishing and promotes its preservation within 5 nautical miles of the Peruvian coast. While the law was passed a year ago in April 2023 and published the following month, its regulations still have not been officially adopted due to unusual delays.
Law No. 31749 only allows the use of unmechanized equipment by fishers categorized as “artisanal.” Under the proposals, fishing activity would be recategorized, with “smaller-scale” fishing activity that includes the use mechanized and nonselective gear added to the category of artisanal fishing. The proposals would also eliminate a measure prohibiting boats that use mechanized equipment from fishing within 3 nautical miles of the coast.
Camones and Espinoza have offered little public explanation as to why they believe their proposed changes are necessary. The proposal Camones originally submitted in January states that it will “strengthen our fishing legislation in favor of artisanal fishers, to guarantee an adequate legal treatment of the extraction and protection of marine species, differentiating artisanal fishing in the classification of extractive practices and in the categories of commercial fishing in the same way that it occurs in reality.” Camones and Espinoza did not respond to Mongabay Latam’s request for an interview or questionnaire to explain their proposals.
However, critics say the proposals would put the biodiversity of the ocean, the marine substrate and artisanal and traditional fishing at risk.
Proposals for changes in the law
For two days, artisanal fishing leaders from the cities of Arequipa, Moquegua, Tacna and Tumbes met with members of Congress and representatives of the Ministry of Production in Lima to explain in detail the risks of approving the legislative proposals.
“We’re doing a great job of explaining to members of Congress what the difference is between artisanal fishers and those who fish mechanically,” Juan Moina, president of the Federation of Artisanal Fishers of Tacna told Mongabay Latam.
Before Law No. 31749 was passed in 2023, only two types of fishing were recognized in Peru: artisanal and industrial fishing. Law No. 31749 changed this to three categories: artisanal, smaller-scale and larger-scale fishing, the latter of which is carried out by large, industrial vessels.
Carmen Heck, a fisheries lawyer and the policy director at the marine conservation NGO Oceana, points out that artisanal fishers had asked for these three levels to be differentiated for many years. Smaller-scale fishing, while not carried out by large industrial boats, uses mechanized fishing gear that reaches the marine substrate and extracts everything that enters its nets without differentiating fish by size or species, according to Moina. Some experts say “semi-industrial” would be a better descriptor for these boats, which are known as bolicheras (commercial fishing boats) in Peru.
“The seine nets have lead in their rigs so that they reach the seabed, the marine substrate, and then drag everything when they close. It’s destructive. They’re mechanized, and in one night they can do up to 20 loads,” says Moina. By contrast, artisanal fishers carry out their work manually, with select fishing gear that does not damage the marine ecosystem, he says.
“For sea bass, we use 8-inch nets; for other species, 6-inch nets. The bolicheras use half-inch nets that catch fish of all sizes, even juveniles,” Moina says.
In 2021, the Ministry of Production responded to the artisanal fishers’ requests to be differentiated from the bolicheras by creating a working group “to identify the necessary reforms for the reclassification of the fleet,” according to Heck. This working group “concluded that these two categories had to be differentiated,” she says, and Law No. 31749 included that conclusion when it was approved in 2023. In Heck’s opinion this marked an important step forward in recognizing artisanal fishers’ work.
However, the new law also reformed the regulation of fishing within 5 nautical miles of the coast, establishing that area as “a protection zone for flora and fauna,” where “larger-scale extractive activities are not permitted.” Although this decision only confirms what was already defined in Peru’s General Fisheries Law, the new regulation added an important point, according to Heck. “What was established was that in the first 3 miles, which are closest to the coast and most vulnerable due to the shallow depth of the continental shelf, only the artisanal fleet is allowed to work, and mechanized boats are prohibited,” she says.
According to a technical report from the Peruvian Sea Institute, an agency within the Ministry of Production, the determination of differentiated extraction zones for artisanal fishing and smaller-scale fishing is due to the geographical characteristics of the coastline.
The new proposals now aim to reverse these decisions. Camones’s proposal on behalf of her parliamentary group Alliance for Progress would amend three articles of the current artisanal and traditional fishing law. The proposal describes traditional artisanal fishing as an activity “in which manual labor and/or the use of technological advances (technological equipment and/or mechanisms) is predominant,” adding that “it does not use large gear used in commercial fishing superior to 30 fathoms in depth, nor hydraulic dredges.” Espinoza’s proposal, on behalf of Popular Action, also includes the use of “mechanized systems” in artisanal fishing.
With the inclusion of “technological mechanisms” or “mechanized systems” within the definition of artisanal fishing, these proposals contradict the current regulations, which establish that “artisanal fishing is predominantly carried out through manual labor” and with artisanal boats that “only include nondestructive and selective nonmechanized methods.”
The Camones and Espinoza bills erase the distinction between manual and mechanized fishing, placing what artisanal fishers had finally managed to differentiate after many years of effort into the same category.
“Smaller and larger boats use the same fishing methods –– mechanized systems –– to lift their nets,” Heck says, adding that these systems are not selective and have negative impacts in the first 5 miles of the sea, “a very important space because species reproduce there.”
The impact on the Peruvian sea
Moina speaks on behalf of all the leaders who traveled from Peru’s various coastal regions to Lima. By way of example, he says that in Tumbes, so-called Viking boats, which are considerably larger than artisanal boats and have a loading capacity of 40-50 metric tons, fish within 5 miles of the coast.
“We’ve listened to our colleagues from Tumbes, and it really is a no-man’s land. There’s piracy, they’re threatening and they extort money with weapons in their hands. And there’s no control or surveillance by the Ministry of Production or the Port Captaincy. They’re abandoned,” Moina says.
PHOTO Artisanal fishers on a raft after fishing in Máncora, Piura, in northern Peru. Image courtesy of Oceana.
“If the 3-mile coastal border is not respected, smaller-scale boats will continue fishing in the restricted zone and will destroy the reproductive cycles of all hydrobiological species. How many years will it take for these natural beds to recover?” Moina says.
The first 3 miles, where smaller-scale fishing is currently prohibited and only artisanal fishing is allowed, is where the major reproductive processes of marine species occur, Moina says: “The fish come to the coastline to spawn because there’s more oxygen, more phytoplankton and more nutrients in that area. They leave their eggs and larvae there to reproduce.”
For this reason, “there’s a law that protects 5 miles” from industrial fishing, Moina says. The new proposals would allow smaller-scale boats to fish within 3 miles, he adds, even though “other countries protect up to 10 miles.”
A technical document prepared by the Peruvian Sea Institute in 2010 at the request of the Ministry of Production confirms this information, explaining that “coastal or littoral marine areas generally constitute areas of high production and biological diversity with variable geographical and bio-oceanographic characteristics, where many species develop their first stages of life.” The report also mentions studies carried out by the Peruvian Sea Institute that determined that fish breeding areas occur up to 5 miles from the coast and at depths of up to 27 meters (89 feet).
“[J]uvenile specimens were located mainly in the area within five nautical miles. Various evaluations of resources have determined that purse seine and trawl fishing gear within five miles has a significant impact on the resources and the environment, because they are not very selective, capture small specimens (below the minimum catch sizes) and in the case of trawling, damage the seabed,” the report states.
Heck says the changes proposed in the bills would impact marine biodiversity and, consequently, artisanal fishing. “The [current] standard has a technical and scientific basis. Over five years ago, the Peruvian Sea Institute identified that seine nets of this fleet have a serious environmental impact that affects the availability of artisanal resources.”
Moreover, she says, the 2023 law preventing boats with mechanized gear from operating within 3 miles of shore is not a new rule because a substantial part of the fleet has been been under that mandate since 2017, when the fishing regulation for the direct human consumption of anchovies specified that anchovy-fishing boats that use mechanized gear must operate outside 3 nautical miles from shore.
Heck says that in her opinion, what is driving the owners of the bolicheras to reject the 2023 reform now is a desire to prevent the Ministry of Production from monitoring their fleet via satellite. “Until now, this fleet has not been checked or monitored and will need a monitoring system to be more controlled. This doesn’t suit those who benefit from the confusion,” she says.
As an example, Heck points to the smaller-scale fleet dedicated to catching anchovies in the city of Chimbote. “Those who have met with the members of Congress who are pushing for these laws are the same owners of the anchovy boats that should’ve been fishing beyond the 3 miles since 2017,” Heck says.
The delay in the approval of the regulations under Law No. 31749 has also become an issue for artisanal fishers. When the law was passed in April 2023, a period of no more than 60 business days from its publication was given for the Ministry of Production to prepare the law’s regulations. However, this was only completed in February 2024 when the ministry published the draft Supreme Decree on its website. This prepublication of the regulations was subject to comments for 15 days, a period that has already expired. To date, the regulations have not received a final approval.
The artisanal fishers who travelled to Lima met with the new Minister of Production Sergio González, who was appointed to the position on April 1. Moina says during this meeting, the fishers asked the minister to at last approve the regulations.
The National Fisheries Society has also spoken out against the counterreform proposals before Peru’s Congress. “Approving regulations under these conditions would not be appropriate for the predictability and legal security of fishing regulations in general,” it says in a letter sent to Member of Congress Jorge Morante, president of the Production, Micro and Small Business and Cooperatives Commission, which is debating both bills.
The letter also mentions that “some of the proposals … lack justification and technical support and even cause concern because they are contrary to the promotion and development of a modern and formal fishing sector.”
Law No. 31749 was unanimously approved in Peru’s Congress and was the product of the accumulation of seven bills from different parties. Curiously, those who voted in favor of protecting the first 5 miles of the Peruvian sea and the work of artisanal fishers at the time are the ones who now propose ending these reforms.
Banner image: A handmade boat in the Peruvian sea. Image by Andre Baertschi.
This story was reported by Mongabay’s Latam team and first published here on our Latam site on April 15, 2024.
Editor’s note: Since the original story was published two additional proposals to reform the fisheries law have been made, for a total of four. The Peruvian Congress has yet to vote on any of them.
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