This weekend, the National Fishing and Aquaculture Service of the Aysén Region (Sernapesca Aysén) officially confirmed the existence of "unreliable information" submitted to the inspection body at two Salmones Friosur S.A. centers, where the fish harvested at the end of the productive cycle would be greater than those planted.
"From Sernapesca, we carried out a thorough work," explained Jorge Padilla, Regional Director of Sernapesca Aysén. "Our team cross-checked information obtained from documentary inspections, field inspections, data declared by the company through the SIFA system (Information System for Aquaculture Inspection), sworn statements to the Undersecretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture by the company on planting and harvesting, among other information… [All this data] allowed us to define that the company was providing false information about movements, plantings, harvests, and mortalities."
This sentence adds to a series of similar incidents. Particularly the one recently reported by Salmones Blumar S.A., a company that not only had to pay a fine but also faced operational suspension during a production cycle at their cultivation center called "Dring 2".
After conducting an analysis and documentary verification of the salmonid farming centers of Friosur S.A., they encountered this situation. In particular, at the Pamela and San Ramón centers.
In the case of the Pamela culture center, the company provided unreliable information on the operation. According to Sernapesca Aysén, the company declared the planting of 15,138 fish more than those reported in 2016, and 154,119 fish that were not declared mortality or harvest during the productive cycle. These figures show differences in 13 of the 22 structures planted in 2016.
Regarding the San Ramón farming center, the company reported to Sernapesca Aysén that the harvest consists of 611,246 fish. However, this figure contradicts the declaration in SIFA, where the reported harvest is 612,834 fish.
For the infraction of both centers, the court sentenced Salmones Friosur to pay two fines of 500 UTM (around EUR 28 million/ USD 32 million). Therefore, each penalty corresponds to the provision of false or unreliable information on the operations of the farming center.
The National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service(Sernapesca) is a Chilean-government entity under the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism. Its mission is to "contribute to the sustainability of the sector and the protection of hydrobiological resources and their environment through comprehensive oversight and sanitary management that influences sector behavior, promoting compliance with regulations." For that reason, to fulfill this purpose, it has a territorial presence in all 16 regions of the country.
