Finally some good news for our seas. Toño, the head of the Vidal family network, and focus of our recent investigation in to illegal fishing and subsides in Spain was found guilty of fraud and condemned to one year and eight months in prison.
Whilst it is great news that he is finally being made to pay for some of his crimes, it is absurd that it takes a provincial court in Las Palmas to bring Toño to justice while the Spanish government fail to take action against him and his organised network of companies and vessels.
I suspect the reason the Spanish government continues to turn a blind eye to such practices is due to nearly €1 billion in EU fishing subsidies that they will receive between 2007-13. Around one-in-three fish caught on a Spanish hook or raised in a Spanish farm is paid for with public money.
How many more examples like Toño’s network are there in the Spain? Given the Spanish authorities seeming inability to bring justice to those who break the law and exploit already overfished waters, I think the answer can only be ‘many more.’
Over the last few weeks, we’ve also witnessed a hugely defensive response from the Spanish industrial scale fishing sector to our investigations and the Looting of the Sea report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
To make matters worse for the industrial scale fishing companies, the small scale artisanal fishing community in Spain have come out supporting us (doc in Spanish). These fishermen are neglected by the current fishing system even though they are largely fishing in a much more sustainable and low impact way.
Our campaign is clearly ruffling some feathers in the Spanish fishing industry. No doubt this is a good start but we need to get the Spanish government to stop allowing subsides to fund illegal fishing.
The UK government can put pressure on Spain to act through the European Union. If you are as outraged as us about UK taxpayer’s money funding illegal fishing, then write to our Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon to demand that he calls for an EU audit of Spanish subsidies now.
