The Island Council of La Gomera opts for responsible fishing and intends to launch an awareness campaign, as announced by the president of the corporation, Casimiro Curbelo, who adds that the insular institution handles the necessary licenses to practice the activity as a sport and stresses the importance to preserve marine life.

Curbelo explains that in order to accelerate and facilitate the administrative process the Council has negotiated with the autonomous region and has become the bridge between the Gomeran fishing sector and the Canary Government, which accounts for the competencies of the sector. "Our goal is to promote the regularization of all activity related to the seabed, and thus boost sustainable exploitation of the marine resources, and no one should escape this reality because of the difficulty in obtaining permits or accessing the necessary information", he says.

Curbelo alludes to the difficulties associated with the dispersal of the Canary Islands and to the centralization of the administrative offices of the regional government on the major islands, and insists that the Council will act as an intermediary to bridge that distance and that Gomeran citizens will not have to move to Tenerife or Gran Canaria to obtain, renew or terminate a license for sport fishing.

"The Island Council of La Gomera has very clear the need to boost the traditional productive sectors, which are a vital economic complement and constitute the main ally of our main source of income, which is tourism", adds the supreme representative of the island, before pointing out that according to the sector data, fishing in the Canary Islands suffers a crisis which has solutions in the short and long term.

The insular president underlines the importance of greater involvement of public administrations to carry out actions such as the regeneration of the seaboard or awareness campaigns for all people, so that they for example reject the sale of prohibited species or specimens which have not attained sufficient size.

The insular counselor of agriculture, Emiliano Coello, emphasizes likewise the benefits of institutional cooperation and recalls that consistently there are ever more hazards to marine resources and La Gomera could not stay out of this reality. "The objective of the Council is just the opposite, we advocate the regeneration of the coast and the preservation of species that inhabit the ocean", he states.

Emiliano Coello ensures that the collective of sport fishermen on La Gomera has some 500 members, who since this January can process their documentation at the Island Council, which has created a special department to meet the needs of the fishing sector.