The Municipality of Lagos has expressed its solidarity with the position taken by the municipality of Nazaré with regard to the sustainability of fishing in its municipality, and endorsed a set of proposals and alternative measures to those recommended by the European Commission which the municipality presented.
Taking into account the economic and social importance that fishing represents in the municipality of Lagos, the City Council decided to associate and show solidarity with the position already assumed by its Nazaré counterpart.
Among the proposed measures are: the restructuring and modernization of the national fishing fleet; the call for a broader analysis of the factors influencing the stock of sardines that are not restricted exclusively to the fishing effort that, it should be noted, has been decreasing in recent years; putting more money towards scientific research carried out by the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and the Atmosphere (IPMA), together with channels for transferring knowledge that allow fishermen to exercise their activity with a lesser degree of unpredictability; and the adoption of views of the Iberian sardine fishing associations that intend to increase the catch quota for this species to 30 thousand tons in 2020.
The entities subscribing to the alternative motion are of the opinion that the fishing quotas allocated and the restrictions set by the European Union for species such as sardines, horse mackerel and anchovy, are insufficient and contradictory with the scientific data regarding the quantity of these species present on our coast.
On the other hand, they intend to draw attention to the socioeconomic implications resulting from the intermittency imposed on fishing, and to the relevance of the species concerned in the dietary habits of the Portuguese people.
