Important News from Incopesca regarding illegal fishing and Citizen Complaints Manual:

INCOPESCA calls for compliance with fishing regulations and avoiding illegal fishing – Issues Citizen Complaints Manual

The call is due to reports of illegal fishing in marine areas of responsible fishing and in areas near the coast. The Institute will coordinate operations with the National Coast Guard Service to guarantee compliance with the regulation. Citizen complaints manual can be downloaded from the link

https://www.incopesca.go.cr/denuncias/denuncias.html

The Costa Rican Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture (INCOPESCA) calls on the different fishing fleets in the country to comply with the regulations. The call is due to the fact that recently, different cases have been reported on situations of illegal illegal fishing, with fishing gear not allowed and in restricted areas.

In order to prevent the continuation of these actions, which are outside the law according to the regulations, the Executive Presidency of INCOPESCA has requested the National Coast Guard Service to strengthen the surveillance processes, as well as the execution of joint operations, to ensure compliance of the standards.

As expressed in the reports, the situation has been repeating itself repeatedly, which represents a violation of current fishing regulations.

“No effort by the country to manage its fisheries and take advantage of the wealth of the sea or protect its biodiversity will really succeed if it is not associated with a concerted effort to fight, discourage and end illegal fishing, a scourge that has the potential of undermining our fishing wealth and our biodiversity, exacerbating the problems of poverty and bad catches that our fishermen face, “said Daniel Carrasco, Executive President of INCOPESCA, who added that the institution assumes a commitment to comprehensive fisheries management.

According to the hierarch, illegal fishing constitutes the most serious threat to the conservation and exploitation efforts of our seas and is not an exclusive problem of Costa Rica, but is common to all the riparian countries around the world. Nor is it a problem exclusively for the fisheries authorities and the fisheries sector.

In this regard, he recalled that there is a Citizen Complaints Manual that facilitates the filing of complaints, as well as the attention to these complaints, so that public officials have the necessary elements for the prosecution and punishment of those responsible, in the framework of the Joint Action Protocol that also strengthens the articulation of the entities that ensure compliance with Law 8436, on Fisheries and Aquaculture.