“See you in the afternoon, I’ll go out to the sea in the morning,” Rogelio asks me in his audio note. We met the next day in a bar in Porto do Son, the town of just over 2,000 inhabitants where he is based.
Rogelio Santos (@rogeliosantosqueiruga), an inshore fisherman by profession, has become a media phenomenon. Almost 40,000 followers on Instagram, more than 80,000 on Facebook, 20,000 on Twitter and about 6 million views on Tiktok for a marine professional who limits himself, on his networks, to talking about his profession.
What is the secret? Surely the tone, far from sensationalism and too frequent drama when we find news related to the sea. “I felt the need to tell,” she explains. “After 15 years at sea, at 34 I returned to my studies, which I had put on hold. Thanks to a teacher, I discovered that I have a certain ease in communicating, so I encouraged myself and started publishing on my social networks.”
“The change, however, came through work,” he continues. “We had caught a lobster of about 5 or 6 kilos, one of those that you don’t see every day and that represent a lot of money. In those weeks it was a closed species, so we returned it to the water, something that is an everyday gesture on so many boats, but is very rarely seen, so I decided to record it and upload it to networks. Why did I do it? I don’t know, but seeing a fisherman make that gesture had an enormous impact, so I started making similar videos.”
From then on, Rogelio’s routine has changed. The talks at schools and institutes accumulate, combining with his work at sea; He is a regular presence on regional television and, as he says, “sometimes they recognize me on the street. It is a pride, but also an enormous responsibility”, something that has made him one of the great disseminators of the virtues of artisanal fishing, but also of the problems that the sea faces today.
“There are less fish than ever and the trend is not going to get better. We fish less because previous generations already fished before,” she explains. “They thought that the sea was an infinite resource. We cannot judge them from our current point of view, but we can understand that our knowledge is not what it was then, so our responsibility is also different. The existence of regulations is fundamental and is a success for all, but we have to go further; We have to raise awareness and that is where what I do can perhaps influence.”
There are only a few days left until the Christmas campaign, so it is inevitable that the topic will appear in the conversation.
It is a complex issue, in which changes, if they occur, will have to be progressive and will encounter resistance. We seek the opinion of professionals from other sectors directly affected by this phenomenon, to see if they share points of view with the fisherman about what the market trend is.
“It is complex, because there are deep-rooted traditions and because at these times it is always difficult to supply the markets,” answers Marcos Rabina, head of Pescados Rabina, a centuries-old fishmonger business in A Coruña, “but it is true that it seems to begin to A change in trend can be seen, surely related to the general rise in prices of all species. Snapper, for example, with less tradition and a more reasonable price, is beginning to appear more and more as an alternative to sea bream, which was what everyone demanded at parties.”
Carlos del Portillo, chef at Bistronomika in Madrid, believes that “in these weeks the prices of some fish are skyrocketing, sometimes it is a real nonsense. And they only respond to the fact that we have eaten sea bream at Christmas all our lives and we don’t stop to think anymore. What sense would it make for me these days to offer a fish that I buy for €150/kg, but that in a month will cost, perhaps, half as much? or less? How much would I have to sell it for and what am I conveying with that? It’s bad for me and for the customer, but also for distributors and fishermen. And it is a pressure on the species that has no logic. Right now there are other esparidos apart from sea bream, such as snapper or urta, which are spectacular, with more affordable prices and which help us to diversify, in cooking, but also to reduce pressure. It’s a matter of stopping and thinking.”
“Luckily, our clients allow themselves to be guided more and more, they ask, they try and they leave convinced. I believe that restaurants like ours have to provide those alternatives, based on the quality of the product and not enter into those dynamics that are only harmful,” he concludes.
“What needs to be achieved is for people to be aware of what is happening in the sea,” says chef Lucía Freitas, from the A Tafona restaurant, “I believe that we must advocate for the consumption of less luxurious fish, and For years I have frequently had muxo (in Spanish mújol, lisa or albur) at the restaurant, for example. When I asked for it the first time at the market, they didn’t want to bring it, because it wasn’t eaten, and now they have it every day and it is sold, because it is a local, economical and tasty fish.”
“I wish there were more Rogelios at sea,” the cook continues, “more people like him, who think about what they leave for those who come after more than what they can get out of today. More and more people are becoming aware, but, as in everything, we must educate, educate and educate. I think we, fishermen, cooks, and cooks should come together and campaign for this until the message takes hold.”
The conversation with Rogelio ends, driven by current events, talking about the alarming decrease in catches of certain species in recent times. We do so following a shocking video, in which one of the main cockle beds in the Iberian Peninsula can be seen, covered by the shells of dead bivalves.
Unfortunately it is not an exception. Clam catches in the Ferrol estuary have fallen by more than 80% in a decade, in the province of Pontevedra the decline in clams and cockles is similar and in the Muros e Noia estuary, where these images come from, the mortality This year it is estimated that more than 60% of the seafood from the sandy areas is produced.
“Several factors coincide,” explains Rogelio, who works and lives in that estuary. “The clam and cockle populations have been weakened for years, despite the care provided by professionals, due to poor water treatment for decades. The damage of 20 or 30 years is not fixed in a day, but it is there. At the same time, pesticides and herbicides from fields near the coast end up in the sea. In addition, nearby mining activity has a decisive impact on our estuary. The product still has a lot of quality. It passes controls and goes to a treatment plant, as required by legislation, it is important to highlight this. The problem is not that, we can rest assured there; The problem is that most of it does not reach the market, because it dies in the sand.
“To all of the above are added the consequences of climate change that we are beginning to see. Now it is the torrential rains, the reservoirs that drain water and change the salinity of the estuaries, but in summer we had an extreme drought, which also affects, although in the opposite direction, the salinity, pH and temperature of the water, breaking a very balanced balance. delicate”.
“In addition,” he concludes, “the extreme summer heat wave killed a good part of the shellfish on the sandy beaches in July and August and was the reason why there were no northeasterly winds characteristic of that time. Because of this, there was no upwelling of deep waters, loaded with nutrients. When so many factors are altered, we reach a point where everything changes and that leads us to a situation unknown until now.”
Despite everything, Rogelio is optimistic. “The moment of returning to land each day continues to be very satisfying, of peace, of having overcome a daily challenge, of happiness for working on this. When I was in Barcelona, ??in La Boquería, and I saw cockle from here, from our estuary, it was an honor. It is not just a question of kilos of catches or money. Is much more. It’s a lifestyle”.
“And it is all of that,” he concludes, “that we have to preserve. When we talk about this we are not just talking about fishermen and people who are dedicated to shellfish harvesting; What is at risk is much more than the work of a few thousand seafarers, it is our productive capacity as a country and the maintenance of an ecosystem of which we are also part. That’s why I think we have to disseminate and raise awareness. And if that’s what social media is for, I have the responsibility to use it to reach more people.”