“I try to avoid a catastrophe. I was born in fishermen family and it hurts me that the fishing is lost”, says Carmen Diaz Rodriguez, president of the Spanish Federation of Artisanal Fishing, Fenapa, who i met in the gastronomic congress ‘Meeting of the Seas’. He is the fourth generation of fishermen and his son, the fifth. She is a shipowner or businesswoman of the sea, like her mother and her grandmothers, and together with her entire family, she has thirty boats, which in other times were many more.
She has had several lives, one closely linked to the world of law that has given her the tables to practice for four years as a defender of her union. Her speech is pessimistic, she admits, but how to act before the climate change, the Asian seaweed or aquaculture and industrial fishing that receive many subsidies.
“Inshore fishing is doomed to disappear and in two generations there will be no fishermen”, he says and repeats everywhere. He hopes that his words will come to fruition and dissipate the storm.
“They want to replace us and that is aberrational. There could be ground for everyone if there wasn’t so much ambition. They want to occupy the sea for other interests: tourism, wind energy. She is very attractive. I have the feeling of talking to the wall, I don’t know if the politician is sensitive. He tells me yes and nothing happens ”.
Diaz was born in Caleta de Velez, a port in Málaga, where his heart sinks when he sees the scant generational change and how the fleets, which one day his childish gaze saw as powerful and eternal, are being dismantled by leaps and bounds. “As fishermen retire, they sell the boat or leave it moored.”
He details that his fleet It is delimited by areas established as prohibited and has no tax benefits. In the past, there was not so much legislation, people lived with dignity and the activity generated wealth.
Currently, to obtain a subsidy, you first have to apply for a loan, start the boat and later, you will receive twenty or thirty percent. In addition, you should invest in courses on sailor, fisherman, first aid, ship concepts, machinery. “Not just anyone enters.”
On the other hand, if there are not enough resources to maintain a ship, you have to dock it and also pay. And for each sale, give two to three percent, depending on the port, to the public company that manages it, plus another percentage to the brotherhoods, which supposedly defend them. “They are practically the executing arm of the public administration.
“We are tied hand and foot. It’s a shame to see more marinas than fishing ports.” He adds that, if the end of the month is reached and without paying social security, even without selling anything, there are surcharges or they ask to auction your house or boat. It is a profession of fighters. The sector is not dismantled, because there are people with a vocation. On average, the fisherman earns 800 euros per month, not much for the sacrifice it entails”. He proposes to reduce taxes on the entrepreneur and VAT from ten to four percent, encourage payment facilities, and subsidize social security for young people.
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About the Asian algae, Rugulopterix okamurae, without predators and that threatens marine heritage, the leader comments that it is speculated that it appeared by chance six years ago when the economist Gunter Pauli experimented in Morocco to create biofuels.
She adds that her sector is very masculinized and if the woman is not visible, it is because she does not want to. More than shipping, she is dedicated to administrative activities. “That equality is political. I like to say things as they are. Right now, if artisanal fishing is not attractive to men, will it be for women?
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