MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chilean tribunal upholds controversial law in support of salmon industry

Senator Guido Girardi presented the challenge

Chilean salmon industry leaders celebrated the decision by the Constitutional Tribunal (TC) to reject a challenge to the newly passed “Ley de Pesca” (Fishing Law).

Congress passed the controversial law in early March in an effort to help Chile's ailing 2 billion US dollars salmon industry get back on its feet. The law provides special credits for the salmon industry and – most controversially – provides salmon companies 25-year concessions to coastal waters where salmon farms are located.

Thirty-four deputies challenged the constitutionality of the law before the TC, noting that the extremely lengthy concessions can be mortgaged and used as collateral for bank loans.

The new law, they said, amounted to the “privatization” of sovereign waters that belong to all Chileans, not to private companies, and is a giveaway to the banking industry. But the TC ruled against the deputies late last week and allowed the law to stand as passed by Congress.

Salmon Chile president Cesar Barrios celebrated the TC’s decision last Thursday when he met with Economy Minister Juan Andres Fontaine to review the rules or norms that will be applied to the law.

“This is an important step forward for our industry,” said Barrios. “It establishes a regulatory framework for better health and environmental policies.”
“As a government we are very conscious that this is an important step forward for the salmon farming industry,” said Fontaine. “But there are still a lot of things to be done to improve the standards that govern the industry.”

Indeed, it was the salmon industry’s stubborn refusal to accept any kind of government regulation whatsoever that led to the gross concentration of farms along the coasts of the Lakes Region, thus allowing the ISA disease to spread rapidly from one salmon farm to the next.

The challenge to the Fishing Law was led by Sen. Guido Girardi, one of Chile´s most aggressive environmental advocates, with the support of the 34 deputies. Among the sponsors of the challenge was Dep. Rene Alinco, who represents the Region of Aysen, where there is a growing concentration of salmon farms.

Dep. Alinco was upset with the way the law was pushed through Congress at the very last minute before President Michelle Bachelet left office.

“This law was written by the salmon industry leaders themselves,” said Alinco. “Who then got Interior Minister Edmundo Pezez Yoma to lean on his friend, Economy Minister Hugo Lavado. And the big operator behind the whole deal was Felipe Sandoval, the former undersecretary in the nation’s fishing oversight agency.”

Dep. Alinco charged that the law amounts to the privatization of Chile’s coastal waters and does nothing to safeguard workers´ rights or the environment.

Environmentalist Juan Carlos Cardenas echoed Dep. Alinco’s criticism. “The new salmon law is shameful and unconstitutional. It was tailored to the salmon industry’s immediate needs and to the needs of the banks that lend them money, and was passed in the final 24 hours of the governing Concertación administration.”

“The TC’s decision to approve the new fishing law will only aggravate the industry’s problems,” said Cardenas.

Although exact figures are hard to come by, most industry observers agree that as many as 10,000 jobs have been lost in the salmon industry this past year as a result of an ISA infection that spread rapidly throughout the densely packed, unregulated industry. The salmon companies have been urging help from the government to get out of a hole that critics say they dug for themselves.

Labour groups in southern Chile said they were not surprised by the TC’s decision to support the constitutionality of the new law.

“There has been a tsunami of layoffs as a result of the salmon industry’s decision concentrate its faming activities and thus foster the kind of economic downturn caused by the ISA infection,” said Javier Ugarte, president of the local salmon workers union.

“The new government hasn’t done a thing for us. We’ve been trying to get a meeting with the new regional governor for two weeks, and he won’t receive us. President Piñera’s government doesn’t want to have anything to do with workers.”

In 2008 the salmon export sector peaked with exports valued at 2.3 billion USD, but in 2010 the industry will export only about 1.7 billion USD in salmon products.

By Steve Anderson – Santiago Times