Recreational fishmongers from Ibiza and Formentera ask to slow down the new marine reserves

Recreational and Nautical Fishing Platform in the Pitiusas has started a signature recollection to demand the Balearic Government and the Insular Board of Ibiza up stop the creation and ampliation of marine reserves that, according to what they report, keep a “prohibitive and discriminatory” character towards submarine fishing and other recreational modalities.

The collective reminds that since the creation of the Marine Reserve of es Freus in 1998, the submarine fishmongers have seen their activity restricted, even though it is a regulated practice and with an estimated impact of just a 1% of the captures in the Balearics. They point out that while the reserves allow small gear professional fishing up to the 97% of its surface, recreational fishing has been submitted to more prohibitions, including modalities such as bottom-fishing trolling, jigging, spinning, fishing with live fish or the use of electric reels. 

Currently, they affirm, these restrictions affect up to an 87% of the waters of Formentera and a 48% of Ibiza’s, with new reserve projects that are being processed, which would amplify even more the prohibition. All that, they affirm, justified in the application of the 41/2015 Decree of May 22nd, which establishes a common regulation mark  of these “false reserves” in which the Agriculture and Fishing of the Balearic Government Counselling applies automatically the mentioned prohibitions to all the current reserves and to the future ones in Ibiza and Formentera. A policy that, according to the collective of the Pitiusas, is applied under the speech that “in submarine and recreational fishing all are furtive” and that “they are disloyal competence for professional fishing of the Balearics”.

They also criticize that no representatives of recreational fishing in the Pitiusas have been invited to the Recreational Fishing Management Board, created a year ago.

Amongst their demands, the Platform demands improving recreational fishing management, stopping any new reserve of fishing interest, authorizing modalities that are currently banned in areas where professional fishing operates, reducing the percentage of protected coast in the Pitiusas to equip it to the rest of the archipelago and promoting integral reserves without fishing, which are considered the only scientifically efficient modality for marine protection.

The initiative is trying to gain civil support for the institutions to prioritize a more balanced management model and to recognize the sustainable character of recreative and submarine fishing.