Chile's new government starts to slash salmon farming red tape

Chile’s salmon producers have received an early boost from the country’s new growth-focused government, which has suspended the selection of priority nature sites that could have led to the eviction of fish farms, reports Fish Farming Expert's Chilan sister site, Salmon Expert..

The sites were being chosen by the Environment Ministry’s Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service (SBAP), a recently created agency designed to centrally manage the nation’s protected areas, which cover nearly 25% of the country.

But that process has been halted by newly appointed environment minister Francisca Toledo, an industrial civil engineer from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, who has a diploma in Free Competition and a Master of Laws from the same institution.

High-level clear-out

Ministers have also requested the voluntary resignations of SBAP director Aarón Cavieres Cancino, and Marie Claude Plumer Bodin, leader of the Superintendency of the Environment – the SMA – in order to change the direction of the key agencies, even though both were selected by public competition and were not political appointments by the previous administration.

The executive director of the Environmental Assessment Service (SEA), Valentina Durán, had already submitted her resignation.

The three high-level departures come after newly installed right-wing President José Antonio Kast announced the signing of a decree to expedite 51 investment projects, which, according to the new administration, were stalled at various stages of the environmental regulatory framework.

Accelerating aquaculture

As part of a broader plan, Chile’s finance ministry plans to unblock 200 aquaculture relocations within the framework of a "National Reconstruction" bill.

Finance minister Jorge Quiroz explained on Radio Biobío that changes will be made to the regulations to accelerate projects that have been waiting for authorisation for more than a decade. 

"There are very important areas that have been neglected, such as aquaculture, which is full of restrictions. There are 200 projects to relocate fish farms, which would lead to increased productivity, employment, and higher production, and they have been waiting for 10 years," Quiroz said.

Powerful adjustments

He added that "we are going to enact legal, surgical, but very powerful adjustments, so that this can be accelerated and made to work, and so that the sector can return to its place, recover".

The National Reconstruction Plan will be presented as a bill and also includes measures aimed at strengthening economic activity, incentivising investment, and promoting productive development in various sectors of the country. It will also encompass modifications to the environmental impact assessment system.