MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

NGO highlight Chilean salmon industry labor problems

Influential NGOs Oxfam Chile and Fundación Terram began the second phase of their “Not Afraid To Go Against The Current” campaign, an effort originally launched in January to highlight questionable labor and environmental practices within Chile's farmed salmon and trout industry.

As in the initial stage, Oxfam and Terram plan to publish ads once more in Chilean local and national newspapers, broadcast radio commercials and hang posters in Puerto Montt buses. But the environmental organizations have also adapted their campaign to reflect recent changes in the industry, which has suffered significantly over the past eight months due in large part to an ongoing outbreak of Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA). A highly contagious virus, ISA can be lethal to fish but does not affect humans. Oxfam and Terram are especially concerned about the more than 2,000 industry workers who have been laid off this year by companies such as Marine Harvest, the world's leading farmed salmon producer, which continue to downsize their operations in Chile. "The companies have shown they're not able to self regulate themselves and the State has shown it has little oversight ability," said Terram Director Flavia Liberona. "There needs to be an institutional framework set up that takes into account the size of the industry and that guarantees protection for both the environment and for workers' rights." The two NGOs are also very much concerned about plans by the various Chile-based salmon companies to expand south – into Regions XI and XII – and thus escape the overcrowding and ISA problems currently present in Region X. "The companies and the government have failed to correctly manage both the industry's growth and the crisis brought on by the ISA virus," said Oxfam-Chile Director Cecilia Millán. "As always, the most vulnerable people, the workers and their families, have born the brunt of things." The current ISA outbreak was first discovered near Chiloé (Region X) in mid 2007. Since then, the disease has spread throughout Region X, which houses the lion's share of the 2.2 billion US dollars industry, as well as into Regions XI and XII. Chile's National Fishing Service (SERNAPESCA) currently lists 25 ISA outbreak sites: five in Region XI and the rest in Region X. The government agency sites another 16 sites as "suspicious" and maintains an additional 81 sites under quarantine. SERNAPESCA also lists 35 sites as "temporarily decommissioned" – a relatively new category used to describe formerly infected farms that have eliminated all fish, thoroughly disinfected all facilities and agreed to remain inoperative for three months for health and safety considerations. The Santiago Times