Artisanal fishermen from CONDEPP reacted to the presentation of the draft of the new fishing law by President Gabriel Boric accompanied by the Minister of Economy Nicolás Grau, this morning in the cove of Quintay.
For Hernán Cortés, president of the council for the defence of the fishing heritage A.G. CONDEPP, the presentation responds to artisanal fishermen’s desire for a decade. “From the beginning, we denounced that the fishing industry had links with parliamentarians in the fisheries commission that approved the Longueira law, that is why we appreciate that the government fulfills its commitment to present this project”.
For his part, Hernán Machuca, spokesperson for the group said “We are hopeful, but we are not naive, we will read the bill and the articles carefully to make sure that it does not have the black hand of the big fish of corruption”.
Cortés pointed out that “The new fisheries law must have a spirit of justice, contrary to what was the Longueira law, so it is essential that the division is favourable to artisanal fisheries, especially on issues such as the sardine quota, whose fishing is 100% artisanal, so the quota must be 100% artisanal, there is no justification for the industry to have a quota for this fishery because they cannot fish. Another fundamental point is that there must be a social platform to support this activity, which is dangerous and has high levels of uncertainty”.
Hernán Machuca declared that “the devil is in the details, we will follow the process with a clinical eye, to avoid the industry ‘passing’ indications such as those introduced by Jaime Orpis and Marta Isasi, whose only objective was to benefit the industrial fishing industry that paid them bribes”. President Boric was presented with a gift at the end of the ceremony.
