Mexico, a country with 300,000 people dedicated to fishing, has closed the last six years with a “poor” and “cosmetic” balance of legislative reforms of the Congress of the Union for that sector in the last six years, according to experts interviewed.
So far this six-year term, 5 reforms have been approved to the General Law on Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture (LGPAS), resulting from two three-year legislatures in the Chamber of Deputies and a six-year term in the Senate.
“These five reforms, if anything distinguishes them, is that they are mostly cosmetic reforms,” said lawyer Rigoberto García Soto.
National Fishing Charter
On December 7, 2022, a reform to article 32 of the LGPAS was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF), which extended the deadline for updating the National Fisheries Charter from one to two years. An instrument that stores information on the country's fisheries and that serves to develop public policies.
“In an environment as changing as the climate crisis, with the lack of permits, with the lack that we ourselves informed the fishing authority some time ago that the information in the National Charter is more than 50% and has been out of date for more than 10 years. So how can this crisis extend the period?” , said Esteban García-Peña, director of Fisheries Campaigns at the organization Oceana, who considered legislative work poor over the past six years.
Productive infrastructure
On January 19, 2023, the decree was published to add that the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Program contemplates productive infrastructure projects that promote the development of fishing and aquaculture communities.
“It didn't add value, but above all it's an innocuous reform, judging by the facts. In other words, if after the reform, which came into force the next day, you measure in the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Program, which programs promote productive and social infrastructure projects have been launched by the current federal administration in the country, you will find that there are only two: in the justice plan for the Seri and Yaqui ethnic communities in Sonora, but there is nothing else,” explained lawyer García Soto.
Photo: Fisheries Commission, Chamber of Deputies.
In this way, the reform does not work if there is no will on the part of the administration to make it effective, said García Soto.
“When you don't give it resources in the budget, when you don't generate the conditions, not only of public policy, but you don't accompany it with the financial material economic resources to implement it, then it ends up being an innocuous reform,” he added.
Calculations for fines
On the same day, a reform to Article 138 of the LGPAS changed the Current Minimum Wage to the Update Measurement Unit, the indicator for calculating fishing fines.
“It was a purely cosmetic reform because it consisted of removing the reference to the minimum wage as the unit of measure through which fines were imposed... so it had no greater impact either on productivity or sustainability or on the improvement of the conditions of the fishing sector,” said García Soto.
Farewell to Inapesca
Later, on December 4, 2023, a reform was published to update the name of the National Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture in the LGPAS to the Mexican Institute for Research in Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture (IMIPAS).
“They do the same thing, just because now it's no longer called Inapesca, it's called Imipas. Well, that's what 500 deputies and 120 senators did for six years in the fishing sector and it's a waste and a shame. Instead of having dealt with substantive issues,” García-Peña complained.
Afro-Mexican communities
Finally, on April 1 of this year, several articles were amended to incorporate indigenous communities and, in particular, Afro-Mexican communities into various provisions of the law.
“Because it has a significant inclusive content in relation to our indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples and communities, it is an issue that has to do with social justice, it is an issue that is not because today it is said it was not included before, but the mention is important, we could not demerit,” said García Soto.
Fishing commissions
The ordinary Fisheries Committee of the Chamber of Deputies performs legislative advisory functions. It held 18 regular meetings in the LXV legislature that runs from September 1, 2021 to August 31, 2024; this is 38% more than the 13 they held between 2018 and 2021; but 28% less than the 25 held between 2015 and 2018.
An analysis carried out, based on the attendance lists, of the regular meetings of the deputies of the Fisheries Commission reveals that there were legislators who were absent up to 14 times in the LXV legislature.
“You're going to find that most of the things they discuss are exhortations. I'm not saying they're not important, but it would have been better if legislators had met to legislate. And to solve fishing problems,” said García-Peña.
On the other hand, in the Senate, the Committee on Fisheries was installed on November 9 of last year. The committee's president, Senator Raúl Elenes Angulo, said at the time that they would seek an accelerated dynamic to review existing fishing initiatives.
Committee on Fisheries, Senate. Photo: Senate.
However, regardless of the first installation meeting, the senators only met twice more: December 6, 2023 and April 25. The first was not attended by Senator Nancy Guadalupe Sánchez, Arturo Bours; Mayuli Latifa; and Mario Zamora. While the second with that of Ricardo Velázquez and Jorge Carlos Ramírez.
On April 26, the full Senate approved an agreement of the Political Coordination Board to extinguish the 27 ordinary committees constituted in the LXIV and LXV legislatures that are not provided for in the Organic Law, including the Fisheries Commission.
An agreement that García-Peña described as “absurd”.
“So, what do you think, before the end of the current legislature, the board of directors sent a letter saying that the reforms of the last few months have no effect and are being pushed back. Therefore, that (creation agreement), which was also cosmetic, which was to make a legislative commission, disappears,” he said.
Pending violations
Among the list of pending reforms to fisheries, García Soto highlighted the issue of administrative violations and sanctions.
There are a number of initiatives under the fourteenth title of the LGPAS, which regulates them, but it is out of date.
“The first chapter, which is the subject of violations, contains a catalog of behaviors that are considered punishable administrative offenses in the area of fishing and aquaculture. It is an obsolete, ambiguous and imprecise catalog; it is a catalog with a series of redundant situations that must be improved to help improve efficiency in the application of sanctions by the fishing authority in the country,” he explained.
The other part of this reform relates to sanctions, which today include: reprimands, fines, confiscations, revocation of permits, arrests and closures.
“Let me tell you that administrative arrest has never been imposed as a sanction in matters of fishing, ever. Nor has closure ever been imposed as a sanction. There are no cases that have been held in courts where the suspension or revocation of permits or concessions in matters of fishing and aquaculture has been imposed as a sanction. This has to do with the fact that there are a series of inaccuracies, ambiguities in the law itself regarding these sanctions, but there is also, and this is very important, there is a lack of regulation. So it's not written how a closure is going to be imposed, how a suspension or a revocation is going to be imposed, how they are going to take effect once they are imposed,” said García Soto.
García Soto added that a reform that reorders the powers and competencies of the authorities in terms of fisheries inspection and surveillance would be necessary, he said.
In practice, in the absence of reform, the federal government has assigned functions to the Marine Secretariat without sufficient discussion.
No resource restoration
García-Peña regretted that the LGPAS does not consider the restoration of fishing resources. A fundamental issue considering that 34% of fisheries in Mexico are in poor condition due to overexploitation, he said.
“There is not a single section in the law that ensures the recovery of species. In fact, I will say it with all the words, it is the only law protecting a natural resource, in this case the fishing resource, which does not contemplate the restoration of the resources it protects. For example: the General Law on Sustainable Forest Development contemplates the restoration of forest resources; the general Wildlife Act contemplates the restoration of elements of wildlife; the law on national waters speaks not only of the restoration or care of water, but of the restoration of hydrological basins. Go to a law as antagonistic to natural and renewable resources as the mining law contemplates the restoration of the systems that intervene. So why doesn't the fishing law contemplate restoration?” , García-Peña lamented.
The expert stressed that reforms of participatory governance and gender equality were also left in the spotlight.
Until August 31, the Congress recess time, the Standing Committee is responsible for the legislative matters of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The 66th legislature will begin on September 1, 2024.
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