The Secretary General of Fisheries of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, Andrés Hermida, has valued the effort made by the entities that have presented marine conservation and fisheries projects “to integrate the policies of management and sustainable exploitation of resources, with those of protection of the coast and the marine environment”, with which ” the fishing sector is reinforced in the long term“. Hermida pointed out.
 
A total of 28 projects presented by public and private entities, which have been beneficiaries of the call for aid co-financed by the European Fisheries Fund (EFF) and the Ministry through the Biodiversity Foundation, which has acted as an Intermediate Management Body, and whose results have been presented today at the General Secretariat of Fisheries.
 
An event in which the co-financed projects were announced, distributed in five blocks: Discards and waste; Selectivity of marine gear and reserves; Protection and conservation of fishery resources and reduction of by-catches; Aquaculture and Awareness and ICT.
 
In this presentation, the Secretary General underlined the strategic nature of the fishing sector in Spain, as it generates 1,238,745 tonnes of fishery products with an economic value of more than 2,600 million euros. It also has, Hermida pointed out, a prominent role in the social and economic development of many areas of our geography, contributing to the creation of quality employment, especially among the most vulnerable groups.
 
For this reason, he has opted to make fishing activity more attractive for young people, stressing that it is “a modern way of life that contributes to a better diet of our society and a better preserved environment” and to promote the role of women who “already represent 14% of employment in the fishing sector at European level, and at the national level around 36%”.