The director of Chile’s National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service (Sernapesca), Claudio Báez, has voluntarily resigned from his position citing personal reasons, Chile's government announced. Báez had assumed as Sernapesca directorship in July 2021.
Fernando Naranjo has replaced Báez as acting national director as of 2 May, stepping in from his previous role as the deputy director of fisheries. He entered Sernapesca in 1992 and has worked in different areas and positions associated with the fisheries control area. During his career he took on positions of departmental leadership, supporting Sernapesca’s control management based on risk criteria and participating in the design of comprehensive control models.
“It is an honor for me to be able to preside over [Sernapesca] at this time so that we can continue working on the already defined goals, approaching our users to understand their needs and adapt to them so as to facilitate regulatory compliance, with a focus on auditing those behaviors that pose a risk to sustainability, integrating technology in all our processes,” Naranjo said.
Sernapesca highlighted Naranjo’s experience and high-level technical work in the control of industrial and artisanal fishing operations, including leading the implementation of a satellite monitoring system and image-recording devices.
Chile’s High Public Management department has begun the search process for a permanent director of Sernapesca.
The fisheries and aquaculture service has seen a significant amount of leadership turnover in recent years. In 2021, Báez replaced Jessica Fuentes, who at the beginning of the year was appointed as acting national director of Sernapesca, stepping up from her position as deputy legal director at the same government entity.
Fuentes was to hold the position of acting director until the government formally designated a new director. She replaced Alicia Gallardo, who was appointed as Chile's new undersecretary of fisheries and aquaculture for a regulatory agency known as Subpesca. Gallardo was the first woman to hold that position in the nearly 45 years of the department’s existence.
Photo courtesy of Sernapesca
