As from next week the famous Olhão fish market will be devoid of sardines, for centuries the staple diet of Portuguese communities, an emblematic fish that has helped shape coastal economies for generations.
The fishermen will set sail on Friday to hunt for sardine shoals but after midnight, that’s it, the national quota has been filled and further sardine fishing is banned.
Portimão fishermen were banned from landing sardine catches from the 28th of August so any sardines on sale next week either will have come from far up the west coast or from Spain and Morocco where fleets freeze the fish for transport.
Portugal's Minister for Agriculture and the Sea, Assunçao Cristas, has agreed that the science behind the shoal estimates is flawed but has not managed to negotiate any leeway or a rise in the tonnage allowed to be caught off Portugal’s shores.
The opinion of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) is under increasing scrutiny as the fishermen know their stocks and say there are plenty of sardines out there and that ICES is over-reacting.
Concern that there will be an even lower sardine quota next year weighs heavily on shipowners’ minds but in the meantime their fishing boats still may leave harbour to fish for other species not covered by the ban, or they can choose to stay in port and the men can collect between €20 and €27 each per day of inactivity.
Cristas said in August that she can not deviate from the goal of "regaining the stock of sardines in Portugal, because the situation is indeed very serious and dramatic."
The minister later changed her opinion of the figures being used and demanded a rise in the quotas, no that this has had any affect yet, while the Algarve public steel themselves for a period without sardines.
Locals questioned as to the affect the ban will have on their Mediterranean diets, responded with many unprintable remarks but generally agreed that the ban was all due to 'Europe favouring the Spanish.'
