Troubled water: fisheries and the introduction of the steam trawler in the River Plate Estuary around 1900

GARCÍA, SUSANA VALERIA

Berlin

Workshop; Science, Technology and Industrialization: Interactions Between Europe and Latin America after the Independence movements (1840?1940).; 2017

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin

The goal of this presentation is to analyze the introduction of a new fishing technology in shared waters between Argentina and Uruguay. This fishing system was based on the use of steamboats and trawl nets and it began to be promoted at the end of the 19th century. This intensive and not-selective catching method contrasted with the ?passive fishing? which involves liner hook, drift net and sailboat as used by the fishermen of Montevideo port. So, the earliest employ of this new technology led to the complaints of these sailboat fishermen and to public discussions on the regulation of fishing and on the conservation of this source of public wealth.