1Off the coast of Chile and Peru, the Humboldt current causes the upwelling of cold water, very rich in nutrients, responsible for tremendous fish productivity. The Peruvians have monitored these stocks since the 1960s, notably through express assessment campaigns conducted simultaneously by 15 vessels equipped with acoustic sounders.

Oceanographic campaign, Peru.

2This is due to the economic importance of fisheries in Peru, but also to the extreme variability of this area, where the yield can decrease sharply during El Niño events, e.g. in 1972-1973 and 1982-1983, when the anchovy population collapsed, durably affecting the ecosystem and society. Hence the idea suggested by the Instituto del Mar del Perú of changing the approach and managing fish stocks in real time, taking into account the wide variety of ecosystem parameters.

Peruvian seiners in a fishing zone.

3When IRD started working there in 2001, Peru was already doing a better job of managing the consequences of the El Niño event of 1997-1998, but scientific know-how was somehow lacking to process the vast amount of data collected. To this end, IRD helped set up multidisciplinary teams and embarked on cooperation which contributed to training a hundred or so Peruvian scientists in 15 years. Knowledge was updated, thereby basing conceptual and numerical models on validated processes.

4Tools were also developed to improve the prediction of El Niño events, view the location of water bodies, track ship and bird movements by GPS and detect the formation of ocean eddies by satellite. With these tools, Peru’s fisheries management system is now the most responsive in the world: quotas are reviewed every six months and, in the event of anomalies, fishing operations can be halted within hours. This responsiveness is unrivalled.