![]() Meanwhile, 1,500-ton ships with installations for freezing tuna at 60 degrees below Celsius are arriving in the port. “The plane will land in Miami at 9:00, at 11:00 they will be at the broker’s, and probably by 3:00 in the afternoon they’ll be in the restaurant or supermarket.” “These boxes have to be in the airport at 4:00 in the morning,” Omar Díaz explains to IPS, setting aside his cell phone for a moment. It’s a complex operation, because after they are cleaned, the headless tuna must be packed in insulated polystyrene boxes lined with polythene sheets and filled with gel ice, where they are preserved for three or four days at a temperature no higher than four degrees Celsius. Under the lights of Manta’s busy, modern fishing terminal, veteran exporters can be seen standing next to the boats that have just come in with their catch, calling Tokyo or Miami, Florida by cell phone to arrange a shipment of fresh tuna for sushi. In sharks, for example, we know who captured a shark whose fin was exported, as well as when and where it was caught,” he said. “There will always be people who try to get around the rules, but we have steadily improved the traceability of the product. “Measures like banning the catch of immature specimens, for example, are being strictly enforced,” Martínez said. Two international workshops have been held in Ecuador, where experts from 16 countries have prepared Ecuadoreans to train people in shark management, she pointed out. “Ecuador is a world leader in shark management and the indefinite ban on fishing for manta rays has bolstered that leadership position,” Maricela Zambrano, a communications officer at the Under-Secretariat of Fishing Resources, told IPS. Research and control plans have been launched to that end. That is, we need to demonstrate that our seafood is ocean-friendly,” he said. “Those regions are demanding that our countries certify our fisheries. “For that reason, national consumption must be encouraged, while our markets in Europe, Asia and North America must be secured.” The government’s task, besides oversight, regulation, health controls and the provision of services, “is to guarantee that demand will always exist,” Martínez said. “That’s why it’s very important for the government’s food security programme to insist on the direct human consumption of fish, which is healthier and more nutritional than beef or chicken,” he said. Little fish is consumed in Ecuador despite the diversity of fauna in its ocean waters, which are home to between 1,500 and 1,700 species of bony fish, including more than 100 kinds of sharks.Īnnual per capita consumption is six to seven kgs, compared to a Latin American average of 15 to 16, said biologist Jimmy Martínez, a technical adviser at the Under-Secretariat of Fishing Resources, whose main offices are based in Manta. Most of that activity was concentrated in Manta, while the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest port, is the leader in aquaculture (shrimp and prawns). To that were added 74 million dollars in exports of fish meal and 173 million dollars in exports of other seafood products. That figure dropped to 632 million in 2009. The record year was 2008, when exports of canned tuna totalled 815 million dollars. In the first seven months of this year, this country exported 105,000 tonnes of canned tuna. Inter-American Tropical Tuna CommissionĪccording to official figures, Ecuador takes the largest tuna catch in the eastern Pacific, followed by Mexico.Subsecretaría de Pesca de Ecuador – in Spanish.Oil Spill Comes at Worst Time for Endangered Bluefin Tuna.BIODIVERSITY: Companies Push Hard to Halt Tuna Collapse.Sharks Make It Through the Net, Bluefin Tuna Don't.Seasonal Bans Not Enough to Save Pacific Tuna.With a population of 260,000, Manta proclaims itself “the world capital of tuna” In one of the gazebos on the waterfront drive there is even a monument with sculptures of a yellow fin tuna (Thunnus albacares) and a tin can. air base operated for a decade, until 2009. Manta is located on one of the most westernmost points of mainland South America, and has a natural deep-water port and a first-rate international airport, where a U.S. “We must not forget about other industries, like vegetable oils and tagua (ivory-nut palms, which produce vegetable ivory, used mainly for buttons),” he said.īut the city’s main asset, according to Andrade and local politicians, is its strategic position. “It has the largest fishing fleet in South America, the highest percentage of unloading is carried out here, and the largest quantity of seafood products are processed here.” Credit: Gonzalo Ortiz/IPS “Manta lives off fishing,” architect Teddy Andrade, the city government’s director of urban planning, told IPS. Part of the Manta fleet in the fishing terminal.
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