The environmental organization urged the Chilean state to reject the pressure of the Norwegian transnational to prosecute the issue.(Photo:Ecoceanos)

Environmental organization accuses Marine Harvest of 'frameup and corporate fraud'

CHILE
Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 23:40 (GMT + 9)

Environmental organization Centro Ecocéanos accuses Marine Harvest of having delivered false information about the alleged recapture of 27.4 per cent of the 900,000 salmon that escaped last July from its Punta Redonda farming centre, located on Huar Island, in the Calbuco district, Los Lagos region.

"Given the public pressure and the obvious inconsistencies in its statement, Marine Harvest has had to confirm the veracity of the complaint made by Center Ecocéanos, recognizing that only 5 per cent of these voracious carnivorous fish had been caught, not complying with the article 118 of the General Fisheries and Aquaculture Act (LGPA)," the organization said in a statement.

Ecoceános Centre director Juan Carlos Cárdenas warns that citizens, domestic and international consumers, coastal communities and indigenous peoples are facing the greatest assembly and corporate fraud in the history of industrial salmon farming in Chile, which generates a dangerous institutional precedent.

The environmental organisation urged the Chilean state to reject the pressure of the Norwegian transnational to prosecute the issue. (Photo: Ecoceanos / FIS.)

The organization maintains that Marine Harvest has not only violated the General Fisheries and Aquaculture Act in Chile, but that the State has arbitrarily modified the legal deadlines for the recovery of escaped fish.

The NGO also points out that "by implementing double standards in its corporate actions in Chile, it has opened up lines related to the payment of ballots for ideologically false services, which should be seen by the Internal Revenue Service (SII), and corruption of regional artisanal fisheries".

According to Ecocéanos, all this has the purpose of concealing a procedure to capture thousands of escaped Atlantic salmon that never existed. "Today, the plague of more than 800,000 Atlantic salmon are depredating the vulnerable marine biodiversity native to Los Lagos region," says the organization.

In its communiqué, Ecocéanos also denounces that a week before the "irregular period" of 70 days to recover the salmon agreed by SERNAPESCA was completed, Marine Harvest established an express agreement with 70 local artisanal fishermen, "for them to declare - after payment of CLP 400,000 (approximately USD 600) - having "spontaneously" captured an undetermined number of escaped salmon, which would allow them to 'comply' with the LGPA".

Leaders denounce that salmon farming would be offering CLP 400,000 for fishermen to lie. (Photo: Ecoceanos)

Centro Ecocéanos rejects the actions performed by Marine Harvest in Chile and warns public opinion about the attempt of this transnational to judicialize the conflict with the State and civil society, trying to use the leaders of artisanal fishing to pressure SERNAPESCA, and to negotiate an "adjustment" of the "fraudulent figure" of 27.2 per cent of the salmon recovered, to finally politically agree on a percentage that is slightly higher than 10 per cent, and to comply "in a flawed manner" with the LGPA.

Therefore, the organization requests the Chilean State to reject the Marine Harvest report, and Sernapesca to implement the maximum sanctions contemplated by the General Fisheries and Aquaculture Act for non-compliance with Articles 118 and 136.

It also requests the investigation of public complaints about serious transgressions of Chilean legislation by Marine Harvest and the implementation of Law 2039 on corporate responsibility to the Norwegian transnational corporation.

Besides, it calls for the definitive expiration of the concession of Punta Redonda cultivation centre and the revocation of its Environmental Qualification Resolution (RCA), for repeated violations of aquaculture regulations, serious environmental damage and public health.

Ecocéanos also requests that the contingency plan be made public regarding the escape of salmon from Marine Harvest in the farming centre in question, and that a monitoring and control plan be established for the escape area and the adjacent rivers and estuaries, of at least three years.

In addition, it proposes to create an artisanal fishery for escaped salmon, categorizing these fish as an invasive pest that endangers national aquatic ecosystems.

Finally, it demands the implementation of a program of epidemiological surveillance of bacterial resistance in the production regions of farmed salmon.

Related articles:

- Marine Harvest and Sernapesca disagree on recaptured escaped salmon number
- Marine Harvest signs agreements after salmon escape
- Marine Harvest given 30 more days to recapture escaped salmon
- Ministry of the Environment denounces Marine Harvest for environmental damage

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