TULCEA: Trawl fishing risks being suspended next year

Net fishing, the specific activity of the Delta communities, will be suspended from next year and about 40% of the wooden boats used by the almost 700 fishermen of the Federation of Fish Producers’ Organizations of the Danube Delta (FOPPDD) will lose the opportunity to and carry out the activity, if the Romanian authorities will not obtain a derogation from the European norms regarding the hygiene of food products.

According to the Sanitary-Veterinary and Food Safety Directorate (DSVSA), only 177 boats are authorized by the institution to transport fish, while the National Agency for Fisheries and Aquaculture has 1,203 boats on record.

FOPPDD vice-president, Cătălin Balaban, declared, on Saturday, during the seminar ‘Deltaic tourism between Covid and war. The tourist season is over. Challenges and perspectives’, held in a resort in Jurilovca, Tulcea county, that the other days the federation received a notification from the DSVSA informing it that starting next year the tarred or painted wooden fishing boats will no longer carry out fishing activities commercially, these substances being considered dangerous.

‘This decision can affect the activity of fishermen, because they do not have the possibility to purchase another boat. (…) They took from the European regulations for moored boats with storage rooms. Or we have some six, seven meter, open boats with which we transport the fishing tools and we also carry out our activity with them. We do not have large sea or ocean vessels. (…) We are reaching the situation where the trawl fishing boats will no longer carry out activities’, the FOPPDD representative declared at the end of the event.

Balaban also said that 30-40% of the boats of the approximately 700 fishermen who are members of the federation will remain ashore, if the Romanian authorities do not change the European rules and added that wooden boats are traditional.

‘Any restriction among fishermen should be supported by the Romanian state to give people the opportunity to buy other boats or to find other solutions. We will go through the normal steps to draw attention to the fact that these lots are an identity of the Danube Delta,’ said the vice-president of the federation.

According to the notification sent to the FOPPDD by the DSVSA, in the county the institution authorized 177 boats until the end of May, while the National Agency for Fisheries and Aquaculture has 1,203 boats in its records.

‘Fishing boats that have internal surfaces tarred or painted with toxic substances not accepted from the point of view of food safety, in which fish and fishery products after capture are stored at the feet of the fishermen, without any protection, represent a major risk for contamination of the fish and fishing products, as it is necessary to ban fishing with such boats, until compliance’, it is mentioned in the address signed by the director of DSVSA, Mitică Tuchilă.

The mentioned source states that the registration fee is 131 lei.

FOPPDD vice-president, Cătălin Balaban, participated on Saturday in the symposium organized by the Danube Delta Tourist Destination Management Association to express the desire of fishermen to collaborate with accommodation units, given that Romanian legislation does not allow fishermen to sell their catches directly to them.

According to the FOPPDD, net fishing, an activity specific to the Delta communities, was very developed until the early 2000s. At that time, there were 17 fishing brigades in Jurilovca and Sarichioi communes alone. Each brigade had a ship that towed eight boats and counted up to 24 fishermen. Schools of fish were found with the help of a fixed frame held by a fisherman, and he identified the species by the vibrations transmitted by the fish touching the frame. At the moment, there is no longline fishing brigade in Sarichioi, and in Jurilovca there are three brigades with eight boats each, and each brigade has 16 fishermen.

“The catches made from net fishing did not provide enough income to continue this tradition. In recent years, the number of experienced fishermen has also decreased, and fish catches have decreased due to the clogging of the connecting canals between the Razim-Sinoe lagoon and the Sfântu Gheorghe branch of the Danube and the closure of the canals from Periboina and Edighiol, which were the migration routes of fish from the Black Sea and the Danube’, said Balaban.

The net is a traditional tool specific to the Razim-Sinoe lagoon area, as an alternative to taliens in the autumn-winter period.

Source – Agerpres / editor – Daniel Șăndăreanu