Fishery Improvement Project

Last Update: June 2024

Specie:

• King crab (Lithodes santolla)

Fishery Location: Chilean waters, Region XII. FAO zone: 87

FIP Coordination: CeDePesca. If you would like more information about the FIP or if you wish to support it, please contact Gabriela McLean.

FIP Partners:

• Royal Greenland
• CeDePesca (Technical support)

Supporting Documents:

Framework Agreement
Specific Agreement N1

FIP Launch / Announced Date: May 2024

Background:

The most significant region in terms of king crab landing volumes is the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica Region, representing until 2007 more than 90% of the total king crab catch at a national level. Over the last few years, it has represented around 75%. Since its onset in 1928 till the early 1960s, the king crab fishery concentrated in the fishing grounds close to Porvenir and Bahía Inútil (north sector of the Great Island of Tierra del Fuego), adding later other harvesting areas such as the Dawson Island, the Seno Almirantazgo, the south of the Brunswick Peninsula and the Seno Otway, limits that were maintained till 1974. In 1975, harvest started in the south area of the region, in the Ballenero Channel and the Beagle Channel. In 1977, the Cape Horn Archipelago was added. During 1979, the geographical coverage of the fishery experienced significant changes, the most remarkable one being the expansion of the harvest activity towards the north of the Magallanes Region. In turn, as new harvest areas were incorporated, landings also increased. In addition to the space variability of the fishing operations in time, a very noticeable feature of this fishery has been the steep decline in landings.

At a national level, the king crab fishery registers four periods since the official statistics began in 1945. A first period from 1945 to 1975, where the annual landings did not exceed 700 t, with an average of 220 t per year. The second period from 1976 to 1999, where despite some variations, landings did not decrease below 1,000 t, with an annual average of 1,823 t. A third period from 2000 to 2010, with landings above 2,000 t, and an annual average slightly above 3,000 t. Finally, a fourth period (2011-2020), whose average annual production exceeded 5,000 t, even though the preliminary figures for 2020 indicate that the landings did not exceed 4,000 t.

The king crab fishery is based in fishing operations performed by independent harvesting vessels, dependent harvesting vessels, and shipping or hauling vessels.

FIP Objectives:

Based on the main results of the Pre-Assessment against the MSC standard v2.01 completed by CeDePesca in April 2022, improvement recommendations were issued in June 2022 with the aim of attaining a certifiable status for the Southern king crab trap fishery in Chilean Region X and XII.

After careful consideration of the first and second Action Plan proposals presented by CeDePesca for a comprehensive FIP in 2022 and for a Basic FIP in April 2024, FIP partners have recently expressed their interest in moving forward with a Basic FIP, with the aim of improving the performance of MSC Performance Indicators related to Principle 1.

The FIP’s ultimate goal is to achieve scores equal to or above 80 points for MSC Performance Indicators in Principle 1 in a timeframe of 5 years.

The specific objectives of the 5-yr FIP Action Plan are:

1. Ensure the adoption of a Management Plan for the Southern king crab fishery in Region XII. The management plan shall set up a harvest strategy that includes explicit short- and long-term objectives (including stock recovery objectives), a harvest control rule, and a provision for the review of the key parts of the system at least once every five years.
2. Achieve the adoption of additional management measures that would produce a tailored reduction of fishing effort in such way that the stock of Southern king crab in Region XII is allowed to recover to its target reference point.
3. Encourage the improvement of the stock assessment methodology. The improvements include the confirmation of the appropriateness of the reference points for the Southern king crab stock in Region XII, the reduction of uncertainty levels associated to the stock assessment, and the conduction of an external peer review of the assessment methodology.
4. Achieve an improvement in the collection of additional data to allow for the estimation of life history parameters specific to the Southern king crab stock in the North Magallanes region and the Central Magallanes region.
5. Promote the estimation of IUU catch in the fishery.
6. Ensure the FIP is conducted in a socially responsible way, in line with the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions’ guidelines for the implementation of fishery improvement projects

FIP Activities

May 2024

On 28 May 2024, Royal Greenland and CeDePesca signed a framework agreement setting the general guidelines for the implementation of the Chile Region XII king crab FIP, and Specific Agreement N1 adopting a 5-yr Action Plan and its associated budget.

On the same date, CeDePesca sent a letter to the Chilean Undersecretariat of Fisheries to introduce the FIP and to communicate the FIP goals and the main improvement recommendations derived from the gap analysis against the MSC standard v2.01 conducted by CeDePesca in 2022.

Click here for a detailed FIP Progress Update (PDF)