Regional Inspectorate of Fisheries carried out more than 700 inspections in the first half of 2016
The Regional Inspectorate of Fisheries (IRP) carried out in the first half of this year 736 inspections in 314 missions carried out on all the islands of the Azores, monitoring more 2,600 tonnes of fish.
As for the inspections carried out, 623 focused on professional fishing and marketing of fish, while the remaining focused on recreational fishing activities.
To date, IRP has conducted 60% of the missions stipulated for this year. This body has carried out an average of 71 missions on the islands of Faial, Pico, Terceira and São Miguel, where there are permanent inspection centres.
As for other islands of the archipelago, the IRP carries out missions on a regular basis, with an average of seven missions. So far, it has already carried out 38 inspections on average per island.
These inspection missions have identified several situations of non-compliance with the legislation in force, which resulted in launch of 61 administrative offence proceedings; 51 cases are related to professional fishing activities, five to the marketing of fish and the remaining five with recreational fishing activities.
In the second half of 2016, the Regional Inspectorate of Fisheries, in addition to carrying out its regular inspections, will implement a video surveillance system in some coastal areas of Santa Maria Island, Formigas Islets and Lagoa de Santo Cristo on São Jorge Island. There also are scheduled mission with unmanned aerial vehicles to be carried out on a regular basis.
The use of these technological tools aims to render inspections more effective and increase the geographic scope of the areas where IRP is more active, even remotely, with the reception of images collected by fixed or aerial video surveillance.