In an article published yesterday in the newspaper Perfil, Dr. César Lerena , Argentina's leading expert on the South Atlantic and Fisheries, criticizes the inefficiency and iniquity of the Undersecretariat of Fisheries and the Federal Fisheries Council after 27 years, accusing them of not managing fishing in a federal, sustainable, or equitable manner, nor combating illegal fishing, as a key act in the British colonial support of the Malvinas.

It proposes reforming Law 24.922 by creating a National Fisheries Agency with real representation from the maritime provinces (which never delegated resources), business leaders, unions, and the naval industry. Such an agency should be dependent on the Ministry of the Economy (due to its extractive, industrial, and export-oriented nature) and self-financed, eliminating the positions of the Undersecretary and the Federal Fisheries Council, to achieve federal management and a fair distribution of resources.

The National Fisheries Undersecretariat and the Federal Fisheries Council—despite their name—are not only not agencies responsible for federally managing the exploitation of fisheries resources, but after 27 years of management, they have been ineffective in doing so in an equitable, sustainable, and even less so in preventing illegal fishing in the Southwest Atlantic, which predates the passage of Law 24.922, and in contributing to any strategy aimed at the recovery of the Malvinas Islands, where fishing is the mainstay. This situation has worsened in recent years, as these agencies have been unable to resolve a business-union conflict that has meant irreparable losses for all parties.

Argentine fishing is stagnant, while this exploitation and trade allow sustained growth for Spanish fishing, and especially for Galician fishing. 

Article 1 of Law 24,922, which we contributed to the drafting of along with former Senator Hipólito Solari Yrigoyen, states: " The Argentine Nation shall promote the exercise of maritime fishing in pursuit of maximum development compatible with the rational use of marine living resources. It shall promote the effective protection of national interests related to fishing and shall promote the sustainability of fishing activities, encouraging the long-term conservation of resources, favoring the development of environmentally appropriate industrial processes that promote obtaining maximum added value and the greatest employment of Argentine labor." Neither the Undersecretariat of Fisheries nor the Federal Fisheries Council have done anything: a sustainable industry has not been promoted, and 60% of exports are made without added value or raw materials are exported to be processed by third parties; in addition, 30% of catches are discarded ( FAO, ANG, INIDEP ), and no policy has been implemented to eradicate illegal fishing. Since fishing is a concession for exploitation, the conditions granted for carrying out a sustainable activity are absolutely insufficient to generate employment and development in communities and regions. Indeed, they never had an environmental policy or one regarding aquaculture, an activity that today represents 49% of global production and barely reaches just over 1% in Argentina. Furthermore—and crucially, given the shared resources—the management of the resource is not federal, to the detriment of everyone: both the concessionaires and the coastal provinces.      

We understand that the law should be reformed by creating a National Fisheries Agency, which would operate as the Enforcement Authority. It would be composed of a representative from each of the maritime provinces; a President appointed by the National Executive Branch at the request of the Provinces; an executive director; a representative from the fishing business sector; a representative from the fishing union sector; and a representative from the fishing naval industry sector. All of these functions will be performed on an honorary basis.

This Agency should be under the Ministry of Economy, not the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, since fishing is an extractive, industrial, and export-oriented activity that has nothing to do with these agricultural activities. Furthermore, it should be self-funded to carry out administrative, research, and oversight activities.

According to Law 24.922, the Federal Fisheries Council's composition has a minority representation of the provinces—individually and collectively—and this only means that neither the current law nor the Council can be called "federal." This is so because the legislation also assumes that the provinces must act as a unit, losing their specific characteristics and autonomy. 

The habitat of the fishing resource is not limited to a marine space under the control of a province or to an area referred to in the exclusive economic zone, and must be treated jointly and comprehensively as referred to in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and through an ecosystem approach, in such a way that, since the coastal provinces are where fishing companies are located and their ports are where raw materials and products are embarked and disembarked, transported, processed and stored, and, furthermore, since fishing resources are species that migrate and intervene in a trophic ecology with other species in different marine spaces, it is biologically and legally inappropriate for fishing policy to be in the hands of the nation and for the provinces to be subordinated to a pseudo-representation that has no basis of support whatsoever, other than to be competent for issues of national security, defense, customs and foreign relations.

The provinces have not delegated the exploitation of natural resources to the nation, and Law 24,922 has arbitrarily determined that resources from 12 to 200 miles are under the domain and jurisdiction of the nation, as if these resources were isolated and did not belong to a single ecosystem. The provinces must relegate their generation of wealth, employment, and population and industrial development to the decisions of a bureaucratic entity mostly made up of national officials who lack the productive capacity of the provinces and, despite this, determine policies that ignore provincial autonomy. This does not even take into account that in some cases, such as the maritime spaces of the Province of Buenos Aires, where the Nation claims them as its own, despite the provisions of the National Constitution; special pacts; the Constitution of the Province of Buenos Aires; and provincial laws 11,447 and 12,558; whose arguments we have already explained in detail ( César Lerena “The Plunder. The appropriation of the Nation's fishing resources of the Province of Buenos Aires” Ed. Agustina Lerena Foundation, 2024 ) and, of course, the Malvinas will not be sustainable after their recovery by Argentina, if its maritime territory is limited to 12 miles.             

The Federal Fisheries Council is insufficiently representative, and key stakeholders in the design of a participatory fisheries policy are omitted. The Undersecretary of Fisheries, for his part, routinely lacks representation, as he is often elected for having militated with the president or minister in power, or as a friend or representative of an influential fishing entrepreneur or a governor with access to power. An undersecretary lacks decision-making power and acts on an in-eternum delegation from the Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries; and a Federal Fisheries Council with overlapping functions that weaken the role of the undersecretary. The aforementioned Secretary of Agriculture—the delegator—does not set policies, but rather the Council, chaired by the Undersecretary of Fisheries, signs resolutions on behalf of that body.

For example, Article 7 of Law 24.922, paragraph a) states that the Enforcement Authority "leads and executes the national fisheries policy, regulating exploitation, inspection, and research," and this is logical, because it is a mere secretary of the President of the Nation, who, according to Article 99 of the National Constitution, is, among other powers, "the politically responsible for the general administration of the country and the one who issues the instructions and regulations that are necessary for the execution of the laws of the Nation, taking care not to alter their spirit with regulatory exceptions ." Despite this, Article 9 of Law 24.922 indicates that the functions of the Federal Fisheries Council will be: "a) To establish the national fisheries policy; b) To establish the fisheries research policy," etc., functions that are not even assigned to the secretary of the branch. A true legal inconsistency and a weakening of the secretary's duties, who is supposed to execute the policy set by the National Executive Branch.

Likewise, the functions of the Enforcement Authority, the Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries, are subject to prior approval by the Council. Therefore, if the current approach were upheld, it would have been more reasonable to eliminate the Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries and the Undersecretary of Fisheries and Aquaculture from the organizational chart. This is a complete demonstration of the organizational incoherence of that body.

We therefore proceed to promote the elimination of the positions of Undersecretary of Fisheries and the Federal Fisheries Council, creating a National Fisheries Agency with true representation from all coastal provinces, the states most interested in strengthening the activity and ensuring its federation to ensure an equitable distribution of the natural resources that were never delegated to the Nation.

Of course, this Agency must resolve—among other issues—the equitable distribution of provincial migratory resources, following the same criteria as the current law, which grants rights to resources originating in the Exclusive Economic Zone that migrate to the high seas. This issue has been unsuccessful in resolving neither the Undersecretariat of Fisheries nor the Federal Fisheries Council, given that you cannot manage what you don't know.  

Dr. César Augusto Lerena

South Atlantic and Fisheries Expert – Former Secretary of State

cesarlerena.com.ar