The drastic decline in the loligo squid during the 2025 winter harvest, for the third consecutive year, could herald an economic crisis that would affect the Malvina Islands as a result of illegal predatory exploitation for which they themselves are responsible.

So much so that the Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese fleets operating under licenses granted by the archipelago's illegal government are now demanding compensation. Evidence indicates that the resource's collapse is the result of uncontrolled overfishing and environmental factors such as seismic oil exploration.

An environmental collapse that generates an economic crisis

The alarming reduction in Patagonian squid catches in waters adjacent to the Malvina Islands is not an isolated natural phenomenon, but the predictable result of decades of intensive harvesting by foreign fleets operating under the umbrella of a British colonial government and others that freely plunder the Argentine coastline along the 200-mile boundary.

For the third consecutive year, the Malvinas winter harvest—the second of the year—has yielded disastrous results, with biomass yields falling below 10,000 tons. A tiny figure compared to the more than 100,000 tons recorded just three years ago.

This crisis not only threatens the archipelago's main economic lifeline, but also exposes the hypocrisy of an industry that, after plundering the resource, demands financial compensation from the usurping colony.

The Galician fleet, made up of 16 vessels with mixed Spanish-British capital that invested more than €100 million in technology for this fishery, is on alert and is demanding compensation, having paid around €15 million to the usurpers for the acquisition of licenses.

Overfishing, seismic surveys and a wasted heritage

The causes of this debacle are multiple and mutually reinforcing . On the one hand, the historic and uncontrolled overfishing in international waters bordering Argentina's Exclusive Economic Zone—particularly by Spanish, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean fleets—has decimated schools of illex squid, a migratory resource that shares an ecosystem with the loligo.

Factory vessels operate without restrictions at mile marker 201, capturing volumes that double or triple the declared catches, in an extractive practice that ignores any principles of sustainability.

On the other hand, the hypothesis that seismic surveys linked to oil exploration on the offshore platform are seriously affecting squid, a species particularly sensitive to acoustic vibrations, is emerging strongly. Experts in the field, such as César Lerena, warn that these activities cause disorientation, stress, and a reduction in the species' reproductive capacity, disrupting its natural distribution.

The scientific community serving the fishing industry in the Malvinas Islands partially recognizes the problem, but fails to point out the illegal origins of the activity it defends . By attributing the scarcity solely to fishing in international waters or climate change, these actors seek to whitewash their own complicity in the plundering of a resource that, by right of sovereignty, belongs exclusively to the Argentine Republic. The situation is paradigmatic: the same people illegally exploiting the Argentine sea are now warning of the depletion of the resource, in an exercise of cynicism that only deepens the crisis.

The depletion of squid is not only an ecological disaster, but a clear warning about the consequences of allowing foreign interests, backed by an occupying power, to manage natural resources over which they have no right.

The islands' economy—which relies heavily on fishing—is heading toward the abyss, and unless the situation is reversed, predatory fleets will soon begin to abandon a fishing ground they themselves have devastated.

Meanwhile, Argentina continues to watch from the continental coast as its fisheries heritage is squandered due to the neglect and abandonment of the national government, international indifference, and the complicity of those in Europe and Asia who finance and benefit from this veritable plunder.