Maltese fisherman: 'Tunisian boats are poaching our lampuki'

Maltese fishermen are upset that their Tunisian counterparts are poaching their lampuki, and MEP Peter Agius is urging the EU Commission to take action.

“This is like sowing your field with potato seeds, watering the crop, and then someone just trespasses and picks the grown crop off the ground when it’s harvest time,” said Arthur Micallef, who has been fishing for the popular seasonal fish for 21 years.

Fishermen catch lampuki (dolphin fish) via an intricate system involving limestone boulders, nylon and palm leaves to create shaded spaces in the sea. The shaded spaces attract schools of fish, which fishermen catch using nets.

Maltese fishermen are assigned a straight line (by lot) on which they can fish. Their assigned line stretches from 7 nautical miles to 100 miles off the coast and can lay their fish traps across that line. Their issue is that Tunisian fishermen allegedly sail onto the Maltese-assigned line and harvest their fish.

“Just the material for the traps costs us between €7,000 and €10,000 per season,” Micallef told Times of Malta. “They don’t spend anything but take our fish... not just a few dozen mind you, but boxes worth,” said Micallef, who was speaking from his boat.

Micallef said he often encounters poaching fishermen on his line.

“Last week I saw 15 of them, and this week I have already encountered three.”

The veteran fisherman called for more enforcement.

Currently, the EU has one vessel that patrols the Mediterranean Sea for poachers during the lampuki season. In his letter to the EU Commissioner for Fisheries, Agius said that there needs to be more boats.

“The Ocean Sentinel vessel chartered by the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) to patrol lampuki fishing waters around Malta is having a deterring effect on Tunisian illegal poachers in the areas which it can cover. One boat, however, is not enough,” Agius told Commissioner Costas Kadis, a Cypriot.

Peter Agius. Photo: Facebook

“Tunisian poachers are planning their incursions depending on the location of the Ocean Sentinel, avoiding the areas in its close proximity,” he said.

Agius said that the EU needs to strengthen its patrolling efforts and even consider a joint mission with Italian, Maltese and maybe even Tunisian authorities to cover the wide stretch of sea in question.

The Maltese MEP said he was formally reporting three Tunisian boats that were caught poaching on the lines of the Maltese. 

Contacted for comment, Junior Minister Alicia Bugeja Said said the government is “fully aware and fully fighting the issue.”

Bugeja Said said that she, along with her minister Anton Refalo, had lobbied the EU Commission to begin their patrol of the Mediterranean, which began a few years ago.

“Before that, the Ocean Sentinel did not conduct patrols specifically for dolphin fish illegalities but for illegal trawling and bluefin tuna fishing,” she said.

The fisheries junior minister said that the government also deploys AFM patrol boats, but they remain mainly in Maltese territorial waters (25 nautical miles from the coast) and are more concerned with maintaining the country’s territorial integrity.

She said the government would welcome more enforcement by having more boats, or at least making more use of the Ocean Sentinel in lampuki fishing rules enforcement.

Bugeja Said, however, believes that the biggest deterrent would come from harsher sanctions.

She said that in November, during the next EU Commission committee for enforcing fisheries illegalities, the government will call on Tunisia to harshly sanction those boats that have been caught.

She said that poaching not only effects fishermen but also Maltese consumers as a lower yield for fishermen means higher prices. Poaching also skews data for scientist monitoring yields, she said.

The junior minister said that again this year, lampuki yields in Malta are lower than usual.  She said that that could be a result of climate change, or even higher wild Tuna populations- that feed on lampuki.

"However, poaching could also be playing a role," Bugeja Said said.