The Industrialization of the Artisanal Fishing Sector

42 Pages·2016·0.27 MB·English

by  Rachel Emily Eisman

Wesleyan University The Honors College

The Paradox of Chilean Fisheries Management: The
Industrialization of the Artisanal Fishing Sector

by

Rachel Eisman
Class of 2016

An essay submitted to the
faculty of Wesleyan University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
Degree of Bachelor of Arts
with Departmental Honors in Romance Studies

Middletown, Connecticut April, 2016
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Introduction
Contrary to popular belief that the oceans provide an endless supply of fish
and seafood, fisheries around the world have rapidly diminished over recent decades.
As the international community has hastened to respond to the threat of diminishing
fish stocks, many maritime countries have adopted similar management structures
that cap the total quantity of fish caught. In keeping with international trends and UN
recommendations, many of these systems require fishers to purchase fishing rights
and then allow these rights to be traded, essentially creating a market for fishing
permits. While these systems have conservational aims, they have produced
significant social consequences by unduly burdening small fishers and allowing
industrial fishing corporations to thrive. Historically, the fishing industry was
composed of primarily small, individual fishers. Recent decades, however, have seen
a shift in the social structure of the fishing industry to one dominated by powerful
private corporations.
Chile, a maritime country with over 2,000 miles of coast, is one country that
sets total allowable catch limits and auctions off fishing rights in accordance with UN
guidelines. Unlike many other nations, however, Chile forbids the trading of fishing
rights, thereby precluding the privatization of the fishing industry common to many
other maritime nations. While there are other maritime countries that have not
privatized their fishing industry, such as France, Chile is unique in the level of
support it offers its small fishers. By legally defining industrial (large) and artisanal
(small) fishers, Chile affords specific protections to its small fishers not seen in most
other management regimes, and therefore serves as a model for social governance in
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the current international context of fisheries management.
Yet Chile’s system has had unforeseen consequences. Uneasy with a system
perceived as favoring a corporate takeover of the fishing industry, Chile’s frustrated
artisanal fishers adapted to survive in the new legal context by organizing, growing,
and industrializing as a sector. Ultimately, the growth of the artisanal sector
undermines the very purpose for which Chile’s fisheries management plan was
implemented by eliminating the small, community-based fisher that has traditionally
protected the environment more vigorously than the large, industrial fishing
corporations.
If Chile, with a fisheries management system that defines industrial and
artisanal fishers and seeks to protect small fishers, has not seen a significant
environmental improvement in its fisheries and faces the same social injustices as the
typical maritime countries with privatized fisheries, this would suggest there are flaws
in the fisheries management structure as currently implemented. Instead of working
within the international framework that sees only slight variations among nations,
management structures in Chile and worldwide should be better tailored to regional
variations and should emphasize the artisanal fisher as the central player in the
industry.

The Decline of Fisheries
Globally, fisheries have been showing signs of decline in recent years, making
it harder for fishers to maintain their normal catch level. While there are many
possible factors that contribute to the loss of species, such as warming waters or
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nitrogen runoff from fertilizers, overfishing is undoubtedly part of the problem. 1 The
oceans simply do not have enough fish to keep up with the overwhelming demand
driving commercial fisheries. Since the 1980s, global fisheries have been in decline
and a total collapse within the next few decades is a reasonable possibility.
About 85% of fished species around the world come from continental shelves,
which are areas of the ocean shallower than 200 meters. These shelves make up about
seven percent of the entire ocean and are mostly contained within the economic
jurisdiction of maritime countries, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. The first
significant fisheries catastrophe was the collapse of the Peruvian anchoveta fishery in
1972. Since then, fisheries have been in constant decline around the world, continuing
through the 80s and 90s with the near collapse of New England and Canadian cod. In
1996, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations published a
chronicle of global catches detailing the stocks that are rapidly depleting around the
world.2
Perhaps the most obvious threat of overfishing is the loss of biodiversity
caused by the removal of high volumes of specific species. Not only does this
threaten certain species with extinction, but it also poses problems for the fish left
behind, as it significantly alters their ecosystem. Most of the fish destined for human
consumption, such as cod or mackerel, are high on the food chain. Removing these
predators from an ecosystem leads to the increase of other species, which could
themselves be marketable or could be poisonous, but which regardless alter the

1 Dabrowska and Mateos, “State of Global Fisheries – Management Policies,” 11-12.
2 Pauly, “Empty Nets,” 10.
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structure of the marine ecosystem with significant consequences for the sustainability
of fisheries.
In addition to overfishing, the industrial fishing technique of trawling
damages deep-water ocean populations by “plowing” nets through the ocean floor.
This disturbs organisms living in the ocean floor and the fish that feed on them,
creating a ripple effect into the entire ecosystem. Due to this practice, bottom water
fisheries have tended to decline faster than open-water fisheries.3
If the only fish caught were the ones intended for market, the threats to marine
ecosystems might be limited. Current fishing techniques, however, employ large nets
to capture high volumes of fish at once, and do not differentiate well between
intended and unintended species. This problem of bycatch, in which unwanted
organisms are caught and thrown back into the ocean, further contributes to the
disturbance of marine ecosystems by removing predators or prey, or by altering the
population size of specific species. Furthermore, large animals, such as sea turtles,
sharks, and sea mammals, are often caught in fishing nets and thrown back into the
ocean already dead or too injured to recover. Besides the obvious issue of the
unnecessary deaths caused by fishing, the prevalence of bycatch causes problems for
the fishers themselves, since by injuring or killing young fish not yet ready for
market, they diminish their future stock.4
Chile is not immune to the threats posed by overfishing, trawling, and
bycatch. The prevalent fish off Chile’s coast are jack mackerel, common sardine,
anchovy, and hake, all of which are fished for consumption. Unsurprisingly, the

3 Pauly, “Empty Nets,” 10.
4 Hall, Alverson, and Metuzals, “By-Catch: Problems and Solutions,” 206.
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stocks have been depleted over recent decades, leading to a decline in total catch. In
1990, 4.5 million tons of jack mackerel were caught out of a total biomass of 22
million tons. By 2011, the catch was down to 2.5 million tons out of a total 230
thousand tons. Beginning in the 1940s, the Chilean hake fishery has been comprised
of industrial trawlers, which use the nets described above, and artisanal longliners,
which use a line with hooks attached to bait fish. Since then, the stock has known
significant decadal fluctuations, collapsing in the 1960s, recovering in the 1980s and
1990s, and collapsing again in the early 2000s. Compared to a biomass of nearly 1.5
million tons in the 1990s, in 2004 a survey measured only 270 thousand tons. This
extreme change resulted in a social and economic crisis for the hake fishery, leading
to an 80% decrease of industrial fishers and a 50% decrease of artisanal fishers. The
fluctuations may be explained in part by the presence of jumbo squid and in part by
the inadequate enforcement of Chile’s Ley General de Pesca (General Fishing Law)
of 1991, intended to limit total catch.5
While industrial fishing poses a significant environmental threat because of
the scale of overfishing and bycatch it produces and the destructive techniques it
employs, artisanal fishing is not completely without risk. In Chile, artisanal fishing is
defined by the size of the boat, which means that an artisanal fisher is not using the
large nets an industrial trawler might, and that the volume of total catch is much
smaller. Despite the smaller capacity of artisanal boats, the growing size of the
artisanal fleet makes its environmental impacts significant overall. Furthermore,

5 Neira and Arancibia, “Food Web and Fish Stock Changes in Central Chile:
Comparing the Roles of Jumbo Squid (Dosidicus gigas) predation, the environment,
and fisheries,” 104.
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artisanal techniques, such as longlining, have been shown to pose environmental
threats, such as the risk of incidental seabird mortality in the Chilean austral hake and
Patagonian toothfish fisheries.6
In Chile, as in much of the international community, governing bodies have
scrambled to come up with an adequate response to fisheries decline. A series of
international agreements over the past three decades has sculpted the legislative
framework of maritime countries around the world, with most using techniques such
as catch limits and closed seasons to conserve fish stocks and protect the fishing
industry.

The Global Response

Recent international trends in fisheries regulation have played a significant
role in shaping the current legislative and social structures of fisheries management.
In the face of increasing environmental and economic threats to fisheries, the United
Nations has developed multiple agreements over the past three decades defining the
basic structure of fisheries management. The primary agreement was a product of the
1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which
established economic zones of maritime countries and held the countries responsible
for conservation within their zones. In 1995, the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization’s non-binding Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries emphasized
the need for conservation and offered more specific guidelines for fisheries
management. More than 150 maritime countries acting in accordance with the

6 Moreno et. al., “Artisanal Longline Fisheries in Southern Chile: Lessons To Be
Learned to Avoid Incidental Seabird Mortality,” 28.
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agreements have adopted similar regulation techniques, such as total allowable catch
limits, quotas, closed seasons, and closed areas.
The 1982 UNCLOS agreement addressed the growing threat of exploitation of
the seas. While its scope was much broader than merely fisheries, it has significantly
influenced the development of current fisheries management structures, mainly by
establishing Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of maritime states and requiring states
to manage the fish stocks within their jurisdiction. It also held states responsible for
the management of all vessels flying their flag in international waters. Whereas
previously states had been in control of twelve nautical miles off their coastline, they
now had jurisdiction over 200 nautical miles.7 The agreement established the basic
legal framework for conservation and management based on the area (EEZ or high
seas) and type of stock. It emphasized the need for techniques such as total allowable
catch limits (TAC); quotas, or portions of the TAC that get leased to individual
fishers; closed seasons for specific fisheries; and setting a minimum fish size based
on the best available scientific data to produce the maximum sustainable yield of the
fishery.8
The voluntary 1995 Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries laid out more
detailed guidelines for achieving appropriate fisheries management. Working within
the framework of UNCLOS, it emphasized the importance of conservation and the
need for the best available scientific data. It identified main objectives of regulation,
such as ensuring that “the economic conditions under which fishing industries operate

7 Dabrowska and Mateos, “State of Global Fisheries – Management Policies,” 13.
8 Untied Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, “Agreement Relating to the
Implementation of Part XI of the Convention,” December 10, 1982, Art. 62.
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/closindx.htm
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promote responsible fisheries,” “biodiversity of aquatic habitats and ecosystems is
conserved and endangered species are protected,” and “the interests of fishers,
including those engaged in subsistence, small-scale and artisanal fisheries, are taken
into account.”9 In short, it addressed economic, environmental, and social aspects of
fisheries management.
Due to the mandatory UNCLOS agreement and the Code of Conduct
recommendations, the fisheries management structures of over 150 participating
maritime nations are relatively uniform. In Peru, for example, the Ministry of
Production operates under a General Fishing Law to regulate Individual Vessel
Quotas and Maximum Catch Limit to Vessels in a system very similar to Chilean
management. In the European Union, the Common Fisheries Policy from 1983
established TACs for the entire EU, which are then divided into quotas among
member states based on their historical share of the catch. This uniformity has caused
visible trends in both the environmental efficacy of the management regimes and the
social consequences for fishers, specifically small fishers engaged in traditional or
subsistence fishing.

Global Consequences of the Current Management Regime
Until recently, the oceans were seen as an endless supply of a common
resource: fish. Predictably, industrial and artisanal fishers alike have for years fished
without restraint to maximize profits and keep up with a growing demand for fish.

9 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Code of Conduct for
Responsible Fisheries,” October 31, 1995, Art. 2. http://www.fao.org/3/a-
v9878e/index.html#4
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When it became clear that the oceans did not in fact offer an endless supply of fish,
many governing bodies adopted the common strategy of “privatizing” fisheries to
give fishers more of an incentive to protect their resources.
Working within the construct of the UN recommendations, many maritime
countries have adopted TACs and a quota system, which allots percentages of the
TAC to individual fishers in a bidding process. In many cases, the quotas can be
traded among fishers in what are known as Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQ).
The process of bidding for and trading quotas creates a market for fishing rights,
passing the responsibility of managing total catch onto the fishers themselves as
opposed to a governing body.10
This privatization of fisheries has resulted in the consolidation of the fishing
sector, decreasing the number of vessels involved and in turn decreasing employment.
Fisheries from the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, British Columbia, and the
Netherlands, for example, have experienced this consolidation in recent years. In
addition, the quota system, along with fishing licenses or permits required to gain
access to the fishery, places a high burden on smaller fishers with lower levels of
capital. Larger industrial fishers, meanwhile, have an easier time buying the required
permits and bidding on large percentages of the quota, leaving less room for the
smaller fishers that have a harder time entering the market in the first place.
Additionally, since the large fishers are able to buy the majority of the quota to begin

10 Olson, “Understanding and Contextualizing Social Impacts from the Privatization
of Fisheries: An Overview,” 353-54.
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