Peace-. The President of Bolivia Luis Arce will today lay the foundation stone of the project called Implementation of a Fish Factory at the Base of Lake Titicaca in the Municipality of San Pablo de Tiquina, official sources assured.
Productive Development and Plural Economy Portfolio and Food Production Support Company confirmed to Prensa Latina that this settlement is located in the municipality of San Pedro de Tiquina in the province of Manco Kapac, 105 kilometers west of the city of La Peace.
On December 27, the dignitary participated in the release of 1.2 million juvenile fish into that freshwater body, the tallest in the world, which will be ready to be caught in the first half of this year when they reach adulthood and reproductive viability has been reported .
Arce wrote on his Twitter account that with this repopulation, “our native fish species from Titicaca must not disappear.”
The head of state stressed the need to increase fish consumption across the country, which he considered important for national potential, and pledged state support.
The juveniles of yellow and black Karachi species were released in the lakeside community of Chua Cocani by the President and the Decentralized Public Institution for Fisheries and Aquaculture (IPD-PACU).
According to the sources, until then, the Aymara communities will have to stop fishing with their huge nets to allow the species to reproduce.
According to the project, the government plans to build a fish industry plant in the municipality of Tiquina as part of its import-substitution industrialization policy.
At the same time, it envisages the construction of a market for these foods in the city of El Alto, adjacent to Titicaca, in order to strengthen food security in the department of La Paz.
A report by the Bolivian-Peruvian binational autonomy agency that manages this lake’s resources says that at least 20 species of Orestias luteus, the scientific name of Karachi, have disappeared in the past 60 years.
Enclosed between mountains and volcanoes of the Andes chain, at 3,800 meters above sea level, Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable body of water in the world and one of the sources most affected by overfishing, pollution in Bolivia and Peru and climate change.