Oceana Satisfied with Sanctions to Salmoneras by Overproduction - Oceana

Oceana Satisfied with Sanctions to Salmoneras by Overproduction

Press Release Date: October 1, 2009

Location: Washington, DC

Contact:

Anna Baxter | email: abaxter@oceana.org
Anna Baxter

Its total endorsement to the sanctions initiated by Corema of the X Region against the salmon aquaculture industry indicated Cristián Gutiérrez today -Oceana’s head of the Salmon aquaculture campaign. Gutierrez said this determination “ratifies our arguments as far as the tremendous damage that the salmon aquaculture industry is causing in the marine ecosystems of the south of Chile, that, according to our calculations, only by the unloading of nutrients it are expressed in a cost of 2,200 million dollars during last the 15 years”.

Gutiérrez explained that the exponential growth of the salmon aquaculture industry generates remainders equivalent to those of a city 5 to 6 million inhabitants. “In addition, it exist a nexus between the salmon aquaculture activity and the proliferation of the red tides and there is evidence on the industry’s abuses on antibiotic, many of them of high influence in the human health”, added.

For Oceana, those damages are the result of the salmon aquaculture industry’s decision to increase their production beyond the authorized by the Government. Important national and international companies, such us AquaChile, Multiexport and Mainstream have incurred in such irregularity. In some cases, the production was increased up to 11 times the authorized quota. It’s been known that salmon industrials had insisted with the authority to misrepresent the environmental impact declarations to regularize the illegal increase.

While the final resolution is expected after the appeal of the salmon aquaculture industry, Gutiérrez indicated that these incidents “reveal the lack of interest of this enterprise sector to develop a sustainable and environmentally. Therefore, these actions reinforce our request for a moratorium to the expansion of the industry in the X and XI Regions, through freezing the aquaculture concessions for 10 years. That will constitute a sensible period of time so that the public services have resources and mechanisms to study, be in command of and monitor and to control to this economic activity”.

Santiago, 6 of June 2006