Despite strong opposition from small-scale and artisanal fisheries, Chile’s new “Fisheries Act" has been passed.

In February 2013, marine resources were privatised for "a period of 20 years, renewable and transferrable," disproportionately benefiting the big industrial fishing companies.

Seven families will profit from the "Longueira Act", named after the Economy Minister who spawned it. The beneficiaries are the Angelini, Sarkis, Stengel, Cifuentes, Jiménez, Izquierdo and Cruz families, who will enjoy no less than three million dollars in annual profits.

The new legislation amends the scope of the sustainability of hydrobiological resources and access to industrial and artisanal fishing, as well as regulating the investigation and oversight of the industry.

For Cosme Caracciolo, an artisanal fisherman and a member of the National Council for the Defence of Artisanal Fishing (CONDEPP): "The government’s motive is to reinforce the economic model in place; there is a political interest in making fishery resources belong to someone.

“Under this fisheries law, 20-year renewable concessions have been awarded, creating ownership over fish that have not yet been born. It’s absurd! It’s applying capitalism to living resources."

Until 2001, when individual catch quotas were allocated, there were 78 fishing companies devoted to horse mackerel extraction. This number soon fell to 26, as a result of the rapid concentration of capital.

After the most recent mergers, only four large conglomerates remained, which now control 92 per cent of the national fishing industry: Orizon (merger between SouthPacific Korp and Pesquera San José), Blumar (merger between Itata and El Golfo), Camanchaca Pesca Sur (merger between Camanchaca and Pesquera Bio Bio) and Marfood (a joint venture between Alimar and FoodCorp).

Caracciolo insists: "What we are saying to the Under Secretary is that CONDEPP remains opposed to this law.

"The purpose behind this legislation is to protect the privileges of the big industrial fisheries, and when a law is unjust, we have a right to disobey it. What’s sure to happen in this case, is that the industrialists will call on the police to repress us."

Having intensely lobbied the government and parliament, the industrialists finally secured their long-held wish: to have a law tailor-made for them, to the detriment of artisanal fishers.

“Big fish eat the little ones”

Before the new law took effect, fisheries considered to be artisanal, with a vessel of up to 12 metres, had exclusive fishing rights within five nautical miles of the coast.

Under the new legislation, industrial vessels, which could not fish within a five nautical mile radius of the coast, can now operate up to the one mile boundary line (1840 metres).

This applies to the area stretching from the Coquimbo region in the north to the border with Peru.

The big fish has eaten the little ones. As a result, whilst the shellfish gatherers and artisanal fishers, who above all work to satisfy human consumption, have lost sovereignty over the coastal waters that provide them with their livelihood.

The industrial fisheries, concentrated into four companies, will continue to exploit the sea to make fishmeal and will use the trawling system, even though various studies have shown to be highly destructive as it is indiscriminate in its catch and alters the seabed

"The main argument used by Minister Longueira to defend the legislation was that it was going to promote the sustainability of fishing resources but, on examination, this is not the case.

“They now want to increase the quota for jack mackerel, which is recognised as an endangered species," points out Caracciolo.

This view is backed up by the head of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Chile’s Sustainable Fisheries Program, Mauricio Gálvez, who insists that "the decision of the Chilean National Fishery Council to increase the catch quota of jack mackerel by 11.9 per cent is completely unacceptable, given the current overexploitation of the stock".

Above and beyond its environmental impact, the "Longueira Act" is now dealing a serious blow to employment.

Following the publication of the controversial legislation in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Chile, other workers linked to the fishing industry have also been hit.

The president of the Fishery Workers’ Federation (Fetrapes), Juan Montenegro, denounced that "there have been over 380 dismissals in the sector since the so-called Fisheries Act took effect. The most recent job losses were seen at the Fisheries Development Institute (IFOP), where 28 people were left out of work," despite the minister’s claim that the law was intended to strengthen the sector.

Indigenous people

Efforts were made to block the "Fisheries Act" through petitions to the Constitutional Court sponsored by a number of Congress representatives.

It was argued that the "Longueira Act" should be repealed on constitutional grounds, given that Chile would be violating indigenous peoples’ rights, their right to self-determination and ILO Convention 169, as well as appropriating living resources in ancestral territory. But Chile’s Constitutional Court dismissed the appeal.

The head of the Lafkenche (coastal people) community for the commune of San Juan de la Costa, Miguel Cheuqueman, pointed out that the situation is comparable to what happened with access to the land, for which the titles were granted but not the productive use of these spaces.

"If we are not listened to and our rights are not respected under the new Fisheries Act, we are being denied a real and concrete opportunity for the economic development of our people."

The Mapuche people, almost exterminated by the so-called "Pacification of Araucania", in which the Chilean army clearly committed genocide but have never been brought to justice, is now being pushed out of its ancestral territories by hydroelectric, forestry and now fishing interests that are trying to take over the rich coastal area, the land of the Lafkenches.

The Lafkenche leadership could refer the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, if ILO Convention 169 is ignored, not to mention the work done in 2008 by the government of the former president Michelle Bachelet, who passed a law, the Lafkenche Act, giving indigenous peoples rights over the coastline.

Moisés Vilches, the Lafkenche leader for the commune of Carahue, believes that the government is acting in bad faith, especially Longueira.

"He was a senator and approved the law on the Marine Coastal Space of the Indigenous Peoples. He was one of those who said ’the sea has to be given an owner’, when we were fighting for our spaces. And we gave it an owner, but now they don’t want to hand over the right to administer it and to control the productive use of the sea.

“With what he is doing, Minister Longueira is going to be called up to the blackboard, because it is unacceptable that from his current post he is forcing us to inherit a conflict for the generations to come," he explained during the hearing at the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH).