22 July 2009

Santiago de Chile, July 22st 2009. (CCC News/Ecoceanos) -  Today, Centro Ecoceanos and Centro de Conservacion Cetacea (CCC) begun the campaign "Don't Privatize the Chilean Sea", after receiving the massive support of citizenship organizations, unions, farmer associations, native communities, artisanal fishers and local companies of tourism, rejecting a bill that will amend the Fishing and Aquaculture Law that seeks to privatize maritime areas of southern Chile.

The goal is to block those senators and deputies that seek to grant, freely and for perpetuity, aquaculture concessions to national and transnational salmon farming companies. The concessions will be converted in mortgages to pay multimillion debts of salmon farming companies and to obtain new credits from Chilean and foreign banks.

The amendment of the Fishing and Aquaculture Law is considered illegal and unconstitutional by an increasing number of senators and NGOs because aquaculture concessions are a National Trust of Public Use that cannot be mortgageable.

Senators, such as Guido Girardi, Alejandro Navarro and Carlos Ominami, along with social organizations, also affirmed that granting maritime concessions for perpetuity threatens maritime Chilean sovereignty, since they will go into the hands of foreign companies.

The campaign, "Don't Privatize the Chilean Sea", was launched yesterday in the newspaper Publimetro, after several press conferences made by the Chilean NGOs Centro Ecoceanos, CCC and OLCA, representatives from the National Confederation of Artisanal Fishers (CONAPACH), the Union of Bank Workers (that gather more than 10,000 members) and several congressmen.

The support to the campaign is rapidly increasing. The Association of Rural and Native Women (Anamuri) that congregate more than five thousand members joined the campaign this week. Since the privatization of the sea does not guarantee the maintenance or creation of new jobs in southern Chile, salmon workers are also supporting the campaign.

The campaign also includes an online petition to request the withdrawal of the law from the Congress. For Juan Carlos Cardenas, "the opposition to this project, which is the first major robbery of the 21st century, is highly important not only in Chile but also abroad, since its approval could set a very concerning precedent for other countries."

People, associations, organizations and anybody interested in supporting the campaign can do so by sending and email to ecoceanos@ecoceanos.cl (including first and last name) or by signing the petition directly HERE.