28 August 2017, El Salvador - The technical team of the Centre for the Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture (CENDEPESCA) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG), shared a strengthening process to develop fisheries and aquaculture research, and for the application of sorting and management models of fishery resources.

The training was developed by the Under-Secretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture of the Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism of Chile, within the framework of South-South Cooperation between this South American country and El Salvador, with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

The purpose of this capacity building exercise is to begin developing new technical tools for the Monitoring and Evaluation of the country's fishing resources, which in turn will favor initiatives for the sorting, management and responsible use of marine resources.

With these South-South Cooperation actions, follow-up is being provided to a series of initiatives that were developed to benefit the fishing sector in El Salvador, such as the elaboration of the "National Plan for the Sustainable Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture", launched by MAG in 2016, with technical support from FAO.

This “National Plan for the Sustainable Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture” was formulated on the basis of the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy, with contributions obtained from different inter-institutional and inter-sectoral consultations, involving fishermen, fish farmers, processors, traders, suppliers and academicians.

Now, with the support of the Under-Secretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture of Chile, work will be carried out on the establishment of a Fisheries Management Plan, which will allow defining, from a technical-economic point of view, the basic criteria for the management of catch quotas, conservation, monitoring, control and surveillance of the shrimp. The Plan will also help define the criteria for a fishing fleet technology model, which will enable a responsible extraction of resources.

As part of the training process, CENDEPESCA technicians and the Chilean Under-Secretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture expert, Javier Rivera, visited ports in the Republic of El Salvador, including Puerto de la Libertad, in the central zone of the country.

in order to apply an eco-systemic approach to fisheries and aquaculture, they seek to deepen the essential knowledge needed to achieve sustainability in all its dimensions: social, economic and environmental.

CENDEPESCA is a decentralized unit of MAG, responsible for the management, promotion and development of fisheries and aquaculture in El Salvador.

Its general objective is to regulate the organization and promotion of fishing and aquaculture activities, ensuring the conservation and sustainable development of hydro-biological resources.