It's nothing new, nor a sudden alarm: it's routine . With the end of the shrimp season and the start of the squid cycle, the Argentine Sea once again becomes a magnet for foreign "distant waters" fleets operating in the well-known and controversial 201st Mile.

There , right on the edge of the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the same spectacle unfolds every year: hundreds of ships fishing without restrictions for a resource that migrates, enters and leaves Argentine jurisdiction, while the State observes, monitors and communicates, but fails to deter.

According to the Argentine Naval Prefecture, “the more than 500 foreign fishing vessels that will arrive at Mile 201 for the upcoming Argentine shortfin squid (Illex argentinus) season” are already underway. In fact, the force recorded the movement of 148 foreign vessels heading to Mile 201, an area where they “operate without restrictions” on a species whose season for the Argentine fleet has not yet begun.

The paradox is repeated: while Argentina administers, regulates and postpones, outside it is captured on a large scale.

The Coast Guard itself acknowledges that “the biggest challenge” is these fleets, primarily from China, South Korea, and Taiwan, which “travel thousands of miles to reach their usual operating area.” Faced with this deployment, the official response remains the same as every year: periodic and planned patrols, and the use of the Coast Guard System. Plenty of surveillance, few visible results.

Mappings

But this season the problem has an added, disturbing element. It's not just about intensive fishing, but about maneuvers that border on—or cross—an even more sensitive line.

The case of the Chinese trawler Lu Qing Yuan Yu 205 has once again raised concerns. With a history of illegal fishing within the Argentine Sea in 2016 and suspicious movements in 2022, this year it repeated similar maneuvers, moving within grid-patterns, a pattern incompatible with conventional fishing activities.

For researcher Milko Schvarzman , there is little doubt: “This ship, along with others, carried out mapping not only on the Argentine continental shelf, but also in the waters of Antarctica.” He added, “Back in 2022, we had already detected this vessel making movements inconsistent with fishing.”

The official response, however, was as predictable as it was worrying. In 2023, the Ministry of Security maintained that the vessel “carried out its activities on the high seas or free seas (…) without any behaviors arising that indicated a presumed infraction.”

The continental shelf is a gray area, but a strategic one. There, a foreign vessel can fish, but without touching or disturbing the seabed. Mapping, as Schvarzman himself admitted, is “an unfriendly or even hostile action.” Even more so when it is carried out without prior consultation and over areas like the Blue Hole, one of the richest ecosystems in the South Atlantic.

Year after year, the diagnosis is repeated with surgical precision: Growing foreign pressure, overexploited migratory resources, insufficient controls, and unconvincing official explanations.

Mile 201 continues to be the scene of large-scale depredation that Argentina monitors, denounces and describes, but has not yet managed to stop.