chile

Historias de pesca: René Jara (Versión en Español más abajo) René Jara, also known as "Patolín", was born in Duao, a fishing cove in the Maule region of Chile. He began fishing when he was 15, and now — at 28 — he’s an expert in the art, catching hake, squid, crab, and elephant fish among other species. For René, fishing runs in the family: he credits his father for teaching him everything he knows.

Workers in small scale fisheries make up over 90% of all seafood employees. These small fisheries, spread from Chile to Belize to Vietnam, catch 50% of the seafood eaten around the world. Small scale fishing can be a hard life — long days on the water, stock fluctuations due to climate change or overfishing, and often low prices. Still: fishing is a lifestyle, a living, a tradition, and a way to support families and communities. For small scale fishers who want to improve their practices, modernize their operations, or make changes to ensure they’re fishing sustainably, support and resources can be hard to come by. We’re out to change that.

Luis Solís, born and raised in the commune of Renca, is a tireless worker and champion for his community, dedicated to working with small scale producers and businesses to improve food supply chains and access to nutritious food for all Chileans. Over the course of his career in both the private and public sectors, he observed a lack of connection and organization between workers causing inefficiencies in the food supply system, as well as a growing concern over the declining nutrition, health, and wellbeing of his fellow Chileans. Luis’s passion for finding solutions to these two issues drive the work he does today.

Abril 30, 2020 Durante una pandemia mundial, ¿qué sucede con los pescadores de mundo? Esta semana, el ONG Future of Fish anunció sus planes para apoyar a los pescadores y a las comunidades pesqueras en este momento sin precedente. La propagación y los efectos devastadores de la pandemia COVID-19 han paralizado un gran parte del mundo. Pero los peces siguen nadando como de costumbre, y los pescadores a menor escala de todo el mundo siguen dependiendo de los océanos para su sustento, y la seguridad alimentaria de sus comunidades. Pero los pescadores están en aprietos, dado que miles de millones de personas están confinadas en sus casas, la economía mundial está en crisis, las cadenas de suministro se han interrumpido, y ya no pueden vender o distribuir su pescado como de costumbre.

During a global pandemic, what happens to the world’s fishermen? This week, nonprofit Future of Fish announced its plans for supporting fishers and fishing communities in this unprecedented time.
 The spread and devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought much of the world to a standstill. But fish are still swimming as usual, and small-scale fishers around the globe still depend on the oceans for their livelihood, and their communities’ food security.

In December, our team members Iván and Diego were in Chile to witness a momentous event: the journey of a crate of fish from San Antonio to Santiago. This one small transaction may be only a 70 mile journey for the fish, but it reflects a giant step in our work to test new models to support fishing communities and sustainable fisheries around the world.

It’s been a strong year for fisheries improvement in Chile. As we wrote about in January, the government kicked-off 2019 with passage of a modernization law to strengthen enforcement and transparency across Chile’s extensive fisheries and supply chains. As part of this effort, Future of Fish is excited to continue our partnership with SERNAPESCA to improve data systems and build stronger infrastructure for protection and improvement of Chile’s fisheries—a partnership that was made official on July 17, 2019, through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

Over the last year, Future of Fish has been working through a co-design process with four Chilean artisanal hake caletas, leading them through idea development, business modelling and most recently to the finalisation of business plans.

During the months of October and November, we helped to create the space for co-design to occur, and with our partners we conducted 7 workshops across 4 caletas. These were spaces where we rolled out the red carpet for creativity and innovation, and allowed thinking, idea development, and business plan skeletons to emerge: all approaches or ways to improve aspects of the sustainability of the fisheries (mainly hake) that members of the syndicates are embedded in.

Chile is taking a big step forward in the fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing with the Chilean Senate’s approval of the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service (SERNAPESCA) modernization project. These new regulations modernize SERNAPESCA, giving it more power to fight illegal fishing and punish the supply chain players who trade in—and profit from—illegally caught seafood.