We found Imanol Ugartemendia in the port of San Juan de Luz, on the boat Sans Peine. “The ship has a French name, we had it when we bought it, and we couldn’t change it, because it seems bad luck, the superstition.” Ugartemendia is 30 years old and has been fishing for 12 years. Three people work on the same boat, only two in winter, and for about three weeks a year, a young man who comes from school learns. Once a week, gas oil departs at 7 a.m. and landings about 30 kilometers; the train is thrown, a ridge is made and in the afternoon it heads to the port at 5 or 6. 70-80% of what they fish is hake, the rest mostly conch, nice and lazy, plus a bit of embarrassment.

Ugartemendia worked for two years on pelagics, the large boats that use devastating trawling techniques: “Conditions were much worse. We were out all month and I didn't love her at all. He took a lot of fish and made little money. He resales all the fish, because he strips many back into the water, dead, those that are small, and therefore is not good.” He bought a small boat and gambled on another fishing boat. At Ziburu-Donibane Lohizune, fishermen, fishmongers and cures have a society in which they help those who want to buy the boat. Each partnership contributes 10% of the value of the boat, in total about 30%, depending on the needs. In return, the fisherman must return 5% of the previous week’s sale to each association. The initiative was born with the aim of helping younger generations who want to work in the sector. “Here we are going to be about 150 fishermen and there will only be four or five big boats left, the rest is less than 12 meters. For us, artisanal fishing is the one that is practiced on boats less than 12 meters, and we use hooks; those of our environment also use the bolinx to fish anchovies or sardines, and some even small nets. In Hegoalde, in Hondarribia, in Getaria … they have won large boats, because they have had subsidies for it, but today there are no more subsidies and they need to pay maintenance, how do we do it now when there is no money? You can no longer buy such a boat and, furthermore, which fish could you fish? With the small boats you take little fish, the expense is less and certainly less trouble for the head. That is a good solution for me. I'm not going to get rich, but I live very well, and the two of you who fish with me have family, children, and they live very well. And I don’t destroy anything.”

Having seen the pelagic massacres live, the fisherman in Urruña is clear that the future must be artisanal fishing. The boat is deposited on land in the port of Ziburu, where the fishmongers arrive and it is the one that offers the most money in the auction that bears the piece. For those who catch a little bit of everything with the small net, they have a direct sale in Ziburu and in Donibane. In addition, the fishermen’s cooperative manufactures fish baskets at EUR 20 for distribution and promotes inside for people to request. They work with cooperatives in Ziburu-Donibane, although today they have lost strength and influence. In Azkaine, a young man has launched the Itsas-ama initiative, which consists of buying fish and distributing baskets to Ugartemendia and others. And they're meeting with the Etxalde movement to take ideas as farmers, avoiding middlemen to deliver the fish in the best possible way. “The goal is to give fish out at a decent price and live well.”

In the opposite direction

The image described, however, is not the most common one. In Europe an industrial model has been imposed which overfishes with destructive techniques. One of the most aggressive techniques is the pelagic nets that catch everything they find along the way. “For many years we had famous Bolantas, then they disappeared and in recent years in the Basque Country makes us a terrible pain the pelagic trawl, the bottom trace denies everything,” explains Eugenio Elduaien, president of the Federation of Cofradías de Gipuzkoa. Imanol Ugartemendia tells us that when he played pelagics they would catch a lot of fish, “all returned and dead, and then you say, it’s small, because we will dry it… I’ve seen terrible things: 15% of what was caught and everything else is thrown into the water. Okay, you can't just bait or bolintxa, but you can fish less, more sensibly, and the pelagics have to take it away, that's safe." What happens is that many boats deal with large producers, fish in tonnes and charge a fee for it; then, even if nobody wants that fish, even if they lose it, they claim a minority.

The large purse seines are also used for exploitation, and the business of nurseries or fattening cages has spread throughout Europe. The fisherman Leo Belaustegi does not see him with good eyes: “Turbot (the fish most present in fish farms today) needs to fatten one kilo of three or four kilos of fish feed, which is a contradiction, how is it possible to feed it another three kilos of sea flour to grow one kilo? The road is the care and maintenance of sea fish, it must be created in the sea and taken out of it, setting up protected areas for this, natural nurseries. But behind aquaculture there is a lot of economic and political interest.”

Illegal fishing is also harmful to the sea, and about 20% of total fishing is illegal in the world, according to research. It is illegal, for example, not to respect quotas, to give false information about the species and weights received, to use prohibited techniques… “In the case of hake, our biggest enemies are in Ondarroa – adds the urruñarra – because there are boats there that say they only use the hook, but every day they throw 20,000 baits, they do not respect their quotas, they catch us too much, and we are pulling in the same circuit. There are tons of hake unlawfully discharged every week in Pasaia, Galicia, Ondarroa… and that hurts us a lot, because competition forces us to sell very cheap, to EUR 3 and a half or to EUR 4. There are also French boats but bought by Spaniards who work on the French quota. In that competition we are nothing but a drop.”

In the Basque Country, after all, the industrial model has gained strength in recent decades, supported by a policy of subsidies that has promoted large boats. “But in the nice one, for example, we keep the same technique, with reed,” Elduaien stressed. On the contrary, the inshore fishermen of Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia decided this year to sell 70% of the tuna quota that can be fished to a Spanish multinational with aggressive techniques. “Hegalabur’s share was very poorly distributed and our share was very small,” Elduaien argues. So small that it almost costs us more work than profit. In this situation, with the price of gas oil and the costs we have, we have had to say yes to the Mediterranean proposal. It has served us to breathe economically, but it is an agreement for a year and if the year is going well, we may not have to do so next year.”

Protection area of 12 miles

The objective cannot be to catch as many fish as possible, as Leo Belaustegi makes clear. A commitment to artisanal fishing: close to the coast, with sustainable gear and gear, allowing fish to complete its breeding cycle – which is now fished before the laying of eggs – by listening to biologists about what can be fished and respecting those quotas, under the control of the cofradías. Next, the key is to sell everything you have taken, according to your own words: “That is where food sovereignty will come from. We cannot eat the tilapia brought from China and the hake from South America, giving the children in public dining rooms the bargain that brought us from Vietnam, while what is here fishing is left unsold in the port. Consumers need to be made aware, both on the coast and inside.”

Belaustegi, member of the association Ondarroa 12 Milia, calls for the creation of a protected zone of 12 miles from the coast in the Basque Country: “Only hooks and small nets would be allowed to fish in these 12 miles to maintain the sea and fish species. On the part of the sector we have received little protection, because fishermen believe that it is against their activity, as they could not fish to their liking in this area, but in the long term it is necessary to limit the catch, to turn our environment into a natural nursery. The refuge would encourage daily fishing and attract new generations, recovering the economic and cultural activity of our ports.”

The Fisheries Act, ready for 2013

“We cannot catch bluefin tuna because some have done wrong and destroyed everything. As with my boat we did not fish bluefin tuna in 2005, the law now says that I cannot fish them, although for 100 years my family has marched here. The devastating ones, on the contrary, have had subsidies for the purchase of boats, have then failed the boats and those who have stayed can hunt whatever they want. The big boats do what they want,” Imanol Ugartemendia complains. The law says that it outweighs the big ones, and that the small ones go through strict controls, while ignoring that these are infringements of the big ones. For Elduaien, the problem is that non-European boats play illegally, fish above quotas, “and then that fish is sold here, they make us unfair competition in the market.” Belaustegi has denounced the policy behind EU legislation: "Europe separates quotas and does so according to economic and political interests, France, Italy, the United Kingdom have a great influence on the Committee on Fisheries and their interests are imposed, quotas are always increased rather than the limits imposed by experts. It is governed by legislation, but there are no means of complying with it, and in the end the one who can at sea does what it can. In these times of crisis, moreover, everything seems to be worth it and the environment, nature and biodiversity are the ones that suffer the most.”

The Common Fisheries Policy, which is being developed within the European Union, will be in force by 2013. The President has acknowledged that the cofradías de Gipuzkoa are afraid, because inshore fishing is always hardest hit when it comes to distributing the cake. “The open sea have more power, multinationals, banks, shareholders have been involved… and decisions are made in favour of them. Some people are full of words, but then the measures are not taken properly: sustainability, artisanal fishing, coastal fishing… And then our cake is always smaller than the others, they leave us very small quotas, they don’t really value us.”

Many environmental associations and groups in the sector have been critical of the new fisheries law that Europe intends to adopt. Among other things, they state that the green speech is left to nothing, because there is no concrete decision or concrete participation; that many species are left out of the proposal, increasing their decay; that adaptation measures are imposed only on artisanal fishing; that it does not promote preference for the least impacting boats in the area; that it does not take effective measures to prevent dead fish from being thrown back into the sea, because it does not prohibit indiscriminate and indiscriminate catching.

The decision to accept the individual transferable quotas, despite being one of the most controversial points, seems to be going ahead. So far, in coastal fishing, the cofradías allocate the quota between the boats, but with the individual quotas each boat, above one metre, would have its own quota and, if it wanted to, could sell it. “The European Union says that no more money will be given to sink or dissolve the boats, and therefore, if I have a ship that is not profitable to me but have no chance of dismantling it, what path can I take? Purchase and purchase of private quota. And who is going to buy those quotas? I am sure the large companies, Pescanova, will tackle a specific fishing model. It is serious, it means privatising the sea, putting it in the hands of negotiations,” Belaustegi warned.

These are not easy times, the price of diesel has also affected the fishermen, but the sea has always been a tough profession, and the interviewees see the future with hope. “I think we’re going to go on for many years, also for young people it can be an alternative, but for that you have to do things right. In Europe they make decisions without taking us into account, and that is a big problem: the fisherman must be more heeded, asked what his problems are and work accordingly. The one who does the most damage should pay and not pay for the damage of some among them,” says Elduaien. They think the same thing Ugartemendia. “Those who destroy should not be allowed to continue along that path.” In short, every day it shows that another fishing is viable, reasonable and urgent.