Photo: Revista Puerto/FIS

Urgent Ordering of Shrimp Fishery: 'The Law Already Says Who Has the Right to Fish'

ARGENTINA
Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 00:10 (GMT + 9)

Eduardo Boiero of CaPeCA demands the application of fishing regulations, denounces irregular permits, and proposes quotification as the unavoidable way to stop fishing effort and stabilize the industry.

In a detailed interview with Karina Fernandez of Revista Puerto, the president of the Chamber of Shipowners of Fishing and Freezing Vessels of Argentina (CaPeCA), Eduardo Boiero, reaffirms his sector's historical position: the shrimp fishery must be urgently ordered by applying the current law to determine who holds the real right to capture.

Boiero, one of the most experienced voices in the formation of the shrimp fishery, leads the entity that groups the largest number of companies with historical permits. These companies, which in the 1990s gave up their hake quota to obtain exclusive permits for shrimp and were pioneers in protecting the resource in the San Jorge Gulf, maintain that the way forward is quotification.

The Federal Fisheries Council (CFP) regulates shrimp fishing in national waters by delimiting specific subareas within the Permanent Closed Zone for Juvenile Hake (ZVPJM), establishing opening and closing dates based on surveys conducted by the National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development (INIDEP). Click on the image to enlarge it

The Demand for Law Application and Determination of Legal Permits

Boiero emphasizes that the central problem lies in the lack of strict law application and the granting of irregular permits that have distorted the fishery, a phenomenon that intensified notably starting in 2017.

• Permits of Unrestricted Origin: For CaPeCA, only those permits whose origin is unrestricted should be the basis for quotification.

• Criticism of Reformulations: The legality of the reformulations made by the Federal Fisheries Council (CFP), which allowed converting permits for non-quota or surplus species into shrimp permits, is questioned. Boiero argues that "no one can transfer what they do not have" and that a permit that did not include shrimp should not have been reformulated to fish for it.

• Annulled Permits: The presence of vessels in the fishery, many of them built by Contessi, that entered with Registry permits (approved post-1988) intended for Coastal Varied or surplus species is denounced. Boiero describes these permits as "fake" and "irregular" because they lack the necessary administrative act from the CFP to catch shrimp. In these cases, the capture history should not be counted.

Boiero: "If [those vessels] do not have an administrative act with which the possibility of fishing for shrimp has been approved, they are fishing irregularly. Those permits are null, even if they have a piece of paper that says other non-quota species."

Proposal for Historical Capture: The Eight Best Years

One of the most conflicting points in the quotification process is determining the period to be taken for the capture history. Boiero distances himself from proposals that take the last eight years, arguing that this would reward the vessels that entered irregularly in the so-called "festival of reformulations" that began around 2017.

Photo: Vieira Argentina

CaPeCA's proposal to avoid challenges is:

• Reference Period: Each vessel chooses its eight best years of historical capture.

• Calculation: These eight years are averaged to obtain an individual participation percentage over the total legal historical capture of the fleet.

• Application: This percentage would then be applied to the Maximum Catch Quota (200,000 or 180,000 tons), which would be set by the National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development (INIDEP) and the CFP.

With this calculation, it is projected that the freezer vessel fleet—which historically had 70% participation but has fallen below 50%—would recover participation above 50% by excluding illegal catches and considering only the legal capture within the limits of their permits.

Photo: Revista Puerto/FIS

The Risk of the "Olympic and Anarchic" System

Boiero emphasizes that the greatest resistance will come from those who "do not have the right to fish." Without quotification, the fishery remains in an "Olympic and anarchic" system with serious consequences:

1. Increased Fishing Effort: INIDEP has warned for more than ten years about the need not to increase the effort. The reformulations have done the exact opposite, incorporating new vessels and disregarding technical recommendations.

2. Asset Devaluation: The increase in effort devalues the investments of historical shipowners with unrestricted permits, who now compete with vessels fishing through social quota or permits of dubious origin.

3. Economic and Commercial Impact: The entry of new players without the proper commercial chain has contributed to the lowering of the price of shrimp. Quotification, by assigning a determined volume to each company, would allow businessmen to choose the best moment to fish and commercialize, thus ordering the commercial aspect.

CaPeCA (CaPIP and Conarpesa also support this position) has formally requested the CFP and the Undersecretariat of Fisheries to begin the ordering of the fishery so that "only those who have a fishing permit that enables shrimp fishing can fish."

Related News:

• Opinion Article: Shrimp Management in Crisis

• Red Shrimp Quota Allocation Awaits Political Will to Regulate Argentine Fishery

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