The Argentine government will seek to renegotiate the bilateral fishing agreements signed at the beginning of the 1990s with the British authorities.
It is estimated that this year fishing will represent more than US$1.6 billion for the companies catching squid in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands. The new ambassador for Argentina in London, Alicia Castro, will resume talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron's administration on fisheries in the Falklands, the newspaper Clarín reported. With Castro's appointment, Argentina once more has a representative in London after three years and a half.
While agreements date back to the 1990s, in practice they are not applicable because Argentina withdrew from them between 2006 and 2007, when the UK changed the fishery system in the islands. The government of the Falklands unilaterally resolved to change the conditions for granting fishing licences, which are now granted for 25 years, and this generated a strong opposition from Argentina.
The Argentine ambassador will begin by reviewing the mandate of the so-called Committee of South Atlantic Fisheries, which was formed from the Joint Declaration on the conservation of fisheries resources between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1990. The purpose of this Committee was to establish the cooperation of the parties on scientific research and data exchange, but nowadays, this does not happen.
A few days ago, John Barton, director of natural resources of the Falklands, who is responsible for the Fisheries Department, among other functions, said that before renegotiating the fisheries contracts, co-operation must be discussed, according to the newspaper El Cronista.
Barton expressed his interest in rebuilding the relationship with Argentina, especially with the Argentine scientists with whom he worked for 10 years, from 1995 to 2005, in the Fisheries Committee in charge of the joint monitoring of fishing operations in the South Seas.
The activity means big business for the islands. Currently, more than 100 vessels catch about 50 tonnes of squid every day, which represent about US$160.000 per day per vessel for the firms holding a licence. Fishing is the main economic activity in the archipelago and makes the GDP per capita of its inhabitants the world's fourth, being four times larger than that of mainland Argentina.
FIS