Chile’s Undersecretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Subpesca, has opened a public consultation period regarding the results of a national aquaculture policy proposal for the next two decades.
The current policy dates from 2003 and was issued with the objective of promoting aquaculture sector growth, within a framework of environmental sustainability and equity in access. Nearly twenty years on, in consideration of new issues arising in the productive, environmental, health, social, and institutional arenas, the undersecretariat’s of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Research Fund (FIPA) moved to tender a project to study the matter.
In this context, between 2017 and 2019, the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso (PUCV) developed a proposal which included surveys, workshops, expert forums, and other actions. Its 528-page FIPA 2017-17 project report was recently released.
The proposal prepared by the PUCV is considered one of the inputs for the analysis, discussion, and preparation of a new national aquaculture policy, a process that will be led by Subpesca.
The process comes at a sensitive time for Chile’s aquaculture sector. In March and April of this year, harmful algae blooms in the Los Lagos and Aysén regions caused more than 5,700 metric tons (MT) of farmed salmon mortalities. While the farmers affected have said the occurrence was a natural phenomenon, unprecedented in Chile in the last 20 years, caused by exceptionally warm, dry weather conditions of the recent Southern Hemisphere summer, local environmental authorities have countered that the fjords in which the incidents took place are subject to anoxic conditions and low rates of water renewal, leading to a higher risk of algae bloom events.
Greenpeace has said that it will file a criminal complaint with Chile’s Public Ministry after reviewing what the environmental NGO called “shocking images of dead salmon” in the Comau fjord, calling into question the efforts to withdraw mortality from the pens and the subsequent discharge directly into the sea of untreated, contaminated water. Greenpeace said the situation is “recurrent in the salmon industry, [with] marine ecosystems once again being used as industrial landfills by companies,” and called for a halt to salmon farming in Chile.
The moves come as Chileans have become more active in protesting the government, currently led by Chilean President Sebastián Piñera. In October 2019, nationwide social unrest and violence erupted in Chile over issues including social inequality, the cost of living, low minimum salaries, disappointing retirement system returns, politicians seen as out of touch with reality, and justice perceived as unfairly favoring the country’s elite. The protests led the country to hold a national referendum to rewrite the constitution. In the October 2020 vote, an unprecedented 78 percent of voters chose to rewrite the national charter.
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