Anchoveta fisheries were at the time, i.e. a century ago, minor, though “[t]he anchobetas (Engraulis) are favored by the indigenous Peruvians. Large quantities are preserved in the crudest way by mixing with salt and spreading on the ground to dry in the sun.” Dr Coker, though, raised selleck chemical “a very significant practical question to what extent Peru should continue to depend upon the birds for the production of nitrogenous guano, or whether the direct manufacture of fertilizer from the fishes should be undertaken in order to supplement the present available supply. Peru did make this change, encouraged by optimistic estimates of sustainable yield for
anchoveta [1] and [2], to develop the world’s largest single-species fishery of the industrial era with catches of 285 million tons during 1950–2006 [3]. As can be expected, anchoveta fishery has become what is known to the world
about Peruvian fisheries, but there is far more to Peruvian fisheries than anchoveta. Peruvians, as express by Coker, love seafood – there are more than 12,000 ‘cevicherias’ in Lima Selleckchem isocitrate dehydrogenase inhibitor alone, to illustrate this. The contributions these and other parts of the more informal fisheries sector make to the economy of Peru is not well accounted for in the official economy, which at present is focused on the industrial fisheries and fisheries exports. Peru is one of the world’s fastest growing economies with the 2011 GDP estimated to be US$177 billion (B), doubling in only six years as reported by the World Bank [4]. FAO evaluated the fisheries GDP to be US$0.6B in 2005, while the gross value of the fisheries exports were estimated to US$2.4B in 2008 [5]. The contribution of the fisheries sector to the GDP has, however, up to now been based on export values with very little or no consideration for the value of the seafood production that is consumed within Peru. This is especially important for the small-scale fisheries sector [6]. Similarly, the employment in the fisheries sector (including aquaculture) was estimated to be 121,123 jobs
in 2007 for the primary sector with an additional 24,109 employed in the secondary sector for a total of just over 145,000 jobs [5]. These Sorafenib manufacturer estimates include employment in marine and freshwater fisheries as well as in aquaculture production, and they include part-time employees (not corrected for part time employment). The employment estimates are focused on the more industrialized fisheries and processing parts of the industry, and do not cover the more informal part of the sector or secondary employment, such as in, e.g., retail. Through this study, it is intended to change the general perception that Peruvian fisheries are all about anchoveta. This is done by bottom-up derived estimation of the contribution that the entire marine fisheries sector makes to the Peruvian economy and society.