Fishing Industry in Spain: Regions, Species, and Challenges

Fishing in Spain

The Spanish Fishing Regions

The Spanish fishing space is organized into eight regions: Northwest, Cantabrian, Tramontana, Levant, South-Mediterranean, South Atlantic, Balearic, and Canary Islands. The most important region for its catch is the Northwest.

Fisheries Production Features

• The species caught: Fish constitute 3/4 of the catch, with the remaining being shellfish. White fish, such as hake and whiting, are particularly valuable.
• By tonnage: Sardines and anchovies are primarily caught for canning, followed by tuna and bonito.
• The main destination for fishing: Human consumption. Most of the catch is sold fresh, although salting, preserves, and freezing are increasing.
• Fishing landed: Experienced high growth until 1976, followed by a decline due to:
  • Exhaustion of domestic fisheries
  • International constraints on freedom of fishing
  • EU quotas

Crisis and Problems of Fisheries

Introduction

• Decrease in workforce
• Decrease in contribution to GDP (0.2% in 2001). However, fishing has an important multiplier effect on related industries such as shipyards, canning factories, ice production, and transport.
• Foreign trade deficit due to high consumption, requiring the import of large quantities of fish.
• Problems: Insufficient resources relative to the fishing capacity of the Spanish fleet.

The Problem of Stocks

• Fisheries: Appropriate locations for setting and pulling nets.
• National Fisheries: Modest resources due to the small continental shelf, which has undergone massive exploitation by the artisanal fleet.
• Community Fisheries: Subject to quotas set annually by the EU, distributed among vessels authorized by a license to fish.
• International fishing restrictions: Began in 1974, when the free resources of the sea were no longer considered free goods. The extension to a 200-mile exclusive economic zone for fisheries dealt a serious blow to the Spanish fishing fleet, which became dependent on fisheries agreements with other countries.
• The main fishing grounds are outside the Atlantic and Western Indian Oceans. In these waters, a fleet of large vessels remains at sea for days, weeks, or months.

The Structural Problems of Fisheries

• The working population in the fishery was about 6,000 people in 2002 and continues to decline and age.
• The decrease is due to the crisis in fishing, depletion of fisheries, mechanization of labor in large vessels, and reduction of fishing licenses. The Northwest Region (Galicia) is most affected.