SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Sep. 14 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Cabildo de Tenerife has granted a subsidy of 140,000 euros to the ten fishermen’s associations on the island to help defray their current expenses and thus promote the activity of artisanal fishing and guarantee its viability.
The island’s president, Pedro Martín, indicates in a note that “since the beginning of the mandate, one of the main objectives has been the defense of the local product and the work of professionals in the primary sector, in this case we are talking about fishing, but also oil, wine, potatoes or honey, among others”.
Pedro Martín emphasizes the importance of invigorating the brotherhoods, promoting artisanal fishery products and contributing to the maintenance of professional fishing, and recalls that in these three years of mandate they have more than tripled the budget for fishing.
“In fact, in total, this government has dedicated more than two million euros to promoting artisanal fishing,” he says.
For his part, the island councilor for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Javier Parrilla, points out that the aid will be paid in the coming weeks and that each brotherhood will receive a total of 14,000 euros.
In this sense, he recalls that “fishermen’s associations guarantee the sanitary conditions of fishery products and are the initial tool against poaching, which destroys the economy and the environment.”
Javier Parrilla also highlights the various promotional campaigns and actions to encourage the consumption of local fishery products launched by the island corporation in the last two years, and recalls that this year, on the occasion of the ‘International Year of Fishing’, the Cabildo designed the ‘Artisanal Fishing Agenda’, a complete program of actions that aims to continue promoting and consolidating this sector.
“Many of these actions we have already launched, such as the recreational fishing website or the campaign to promote kilometer zero fishery products in university cafeterias,” recalls the island councilor.
FISHERMEN’S BROTHERHOODS
The brotherhoods advise and guide their members on the procedures that fishermen have to carry out, such as the daily management of permits, authorizations and procedures before different administrations, in addition to informing, managing and processing aid, programs and subsidies.
In the same way, they are the entities authorized to carry out the procedure for the first sale of the archipelago’s fishery products, a procedure that all fishery products must go through to be legal before entering the marketing chain.
Fishing activity in Tenerife is characterized by the medium size of its boats, by the limited power of its engines and by crews made up, in most cases, of members of a family unit.
The artisanal vessels develop versatile capture strategies, all of them sustainable, to take advantage of the diversity of the island ecosystems, highlights from the Cabildo.
