Deep-sea fisheries off Latin America: an introduction

Abstract

., 2006). It has been argued that developing coastal countries, concentrated in the Southern Hemisphere, have devel-oped their offshore fishing capacity (through national fleet enhancement or foreign fishing agreements) in order to further production of both large, high-value and small, low-value fish (and shellfish); the former are destined for international markets and the latter to supply domestic food demands. Worldwide, this proc-ess has also been associated with the progressive occu-pation of deeper areas by commercial fleets, initially in search of better catches of shelf targets but eventually aiming at the exploitation of some highly profitable, typically deep-water species (Japp & Wilkinson, 2007). Largely embedded in the developing world, Latin America may be seen as a good example of such trends. It comprises 20 coastal countries whose Eco-nomic Exclusive Zones (EEZs) extend into the south-western Atlantic, eastern Pacific, Southern Oceans, and Caribbean Sea. The region has historically contributed over 15% the world’s marine fish production, although most of this has concentrated on fishmeal produced by massive catches of small pelagic fish in upwelling zones off Peru and Chile. In recent decades, however, Latin American fisheries production not only increased continuously but also diversified, shifting its focus to the production of fish for human con-sumption (as opposed to fishmeal) and trading with the USA, EU, and Japan (Wiefels, 2003). As the new millennium progressed, Latin America became a major net export region reporting, in 2006, an 8 billion US$ surplus in fish and the fish products trade (Garcia & Grainger, 2005; FAO, 2009). Notwithstanding, several large Latin American countries have also experienced a growing domestic demand for seafood, and regional fishery development seems to have been motivated by obtaining hard currency rather than food security (Wiefels, 2003). In the context of said fishing devel-opment history, it stands to be asked: has fishing also gone deeper off Latin American countries? Deep-water fishing, normally defined as fishing conducted near the seafloor beyond the continental shelf break (including slope areas, seamounts, and seamount ridges), emerged in the 1950s through pio-neer operations of Russian trawlers on the northern mid-Atlantic ridge (Troyanovsky & Lisovsky, 1995; Japp & Wilkinson, 2007). In the following decades (1960-2000), fishing technologies advanced and deep-water fisheries expanded to all oceanic regions of the world, being particularly important in northern temper-ate-water oceans (