Fisherman’s Day: how are the handicraft fishermen doing?

Today Wednesday June 29th Fisherman’s Dayan article that makes up 1.3% of the country’s GDP, but what is the position of workers in this activity?

Peru has about 245,000 jobs in the fishing sector, of which about 30,000 are artisanal fishermen. National Fisheries Development Fund (Fondepes).

Artisanal fishermen in Peru, who operate boats that can carry less than 30 tons of fish, have faced some challenges in recent years.

First, between 2012 and 2017, a significant reduction in catch per vessel of 35% was reported, as well as wage cuts. handicraft fishermen.

“Unfortunately, this sector is not very well organized, which has led to the problem of overexploitation of resources, which means lower wages for fishermen,” said Osvaldo Molina, an economist at the Development Research Network. . . .

Molina added that in 2019 the study was conducted Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to estimate the annual losses of the sector due to the lack of a management policy for this sector, and as a result, more than 375 million US dollars are lost every year.

Support from Fondepes

The head of Fondepes, Antonio Lambruschini, noted that a budget of about 120 million Singapore dollars a year is allocated to support handicraft fishermen.

“This budget is invested mainly in infrastructure works throughout berths which we have on the coast, as well as in aquaculture in the Sierra and the Amazon. This infrastructure aims to increase the attentional capacity of fishermen through makeshift moorings,” he said at the RPP.

Lambruschini specified how this fund works, which allows financing the activities of artisanal fishermen.

“They get a loan that makes it easier for them to purchase consumables or equipment, tools that allow them to improve their working conditions. loans they are supervised, this means that the interested fisherman finds out which supplier is the best supplier to obtain the appropriate equipment, they contact us, go through the qualification process and Fondepes pays the corresponding amount directly to the supplier, and the fisherman agrees to arrange a loan, which can be up to 3 years with an interest rate of up to 3% per annum,” he explained.

Oil spill in Ventanilla

In January, an oil spill was reported in Ventanilla, affecting some 2,500 artisanal fishermen in the area.

Faced with such a situation, funds He indicated that the artisanal fishermen were supported by various actions, including the suspension of loan payments.

“We identified 220 fishermen who had loans from us and who had difficulties because they were in the Ventanilla, Callao and Chancay area. To support them, the quotas of these fishermen who had loans with us were suspended for four months,” the report says. Lambruschini.

However, this would not be enough to solve the problems faced by fishermen after oil spill.

It was recently reported that artisanal fishermen said that Repsol did not fulfill the compensation payment promised after the incident and that only the first two payments were made.

At the moment, the Pachacutano Youth Association indicates that in five months, an average of 250 people, between fishermen and workers from other sectors stopped working on Cavero Beach.