the decline in achovy in peru was cause by what
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yet thriving in the Humboldt Current, the plankton-rich upwelling of Antarctic waters off South America’s Pacific coast, this diminutive, bright-silver forager gathers in vast shoals that have become the fishing industry's easiest pickings.
According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, the Peruvian anchovy is “the most heavily exploited fish in world history,” with annual catches in Chile and Peru sometimes totaling more than 9 million tons, two or three times the United States' catch of all fish species.
Most of that haul is caught in Peru, making the country the world’s top exporter of fish meal — the lucrative industry churns out feed to fatten up livestock from the US Midwest to China and, increasingly, to supply the rapidly expanding global fish-farming business.
Yet widespread corruption here means quotas and other safeguards intended to preserve what ought to be one of Peru’s greatest renewable resources are routinely flouted.
No wonder, then, that anchovy stocks appear to be on the decline. According to an official Peruvian report, there were 4.85 million tons of anchovies in Peru's waters in 2012 — a 28 percent drop from the average of the last 12 years.
The minimum population needed to ensure the species’ long-term survival, the report says, is 5.4 million tons.
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Because anchovies are a key part of the food chain, their decline is affecting many other, larger species in the Humboldt’s teeming waters.
Marcelo Perez, 57, fishes daily to supply his small restaurant in the surf resort of Punta Hermosa, just south of Peru's capital city of Lima. He says catches of species such as sole and bass have declined dramatically over his 35 years in the business.
In the 1980s, when Perez checked his 250-foot driftnets after leaving them out overnight, he would usually discover between 100 and 200 pounds of fish. Now he finds 20 to 100 pounds — or often nothing. “The sea is different now,” he says. “You have to work harder to get less.”
Now, however, the government has decided enough is enough.
The Production Ministry has launched a crackdown on rampant corruption in the anchovy industry aimed at ensuring the long-term sustainability of the species over short-term profit.
First, it slashed the annual anchovy quota to just 734,000 tons.
Subsequent measures have included a ban on industrial fishing within 10 miles of the coast in northern and central Peru, and 7 miles in southern Peru, to protect the anchovies’ breeding grounds. Authorities have given permits to just 600 midsize boats to fish anchovy within 5 to 10 miles. Fines can amount to $3 million for some of the country’s largest fishing companies for catching baby anchovies.
“The Peruvian anchovy is in danger of disappearing,” warned President Ollanta Humala, as he justified the measures. “We recognize the irresponsibility and corruption of large companies that have pillaged the anchovy.”
Both the measures and the new combative tone from the government have received qualified support from environmentalists.