Chilean kelp fishery is one of the most important ones in Atacama region. (Photo: Sernapesca)
Supreme Court confirms sanction to seaweed export plant
CHILE
Friday, October 19, 2018, 21:20 (GMT + 9)
In an unprecedented ruling for the Atacama region, the Supreme Court sentenced Vallenar-based Exportaciones M2 SA seaweed processing plant to six days of temporary closure, ratifying the audits that SERNAPESCA is carrying out along the entire productive chain of the fishing activity
The company had been denounced a year ago by SERNAPESCA Atacama in two court cases, for maintaining 2,500 kilos of black kelp (Lessonia berteorana / Lessonia spicata) in the closed season and another 1,420 kilos of Chilean kelp (Lessonia trabeculata), both resources without legal accreditation.
The ruling ratifies the judgment in the first instance of the 1st Civil Court of Vallenar and establishes that the company must also pay a total fine of 60 UTM -30 UTM for each cause-, another one for CLP 419,711 (USD 622) for not proving legal origin, and the costs of both legal cases.
SERNAPESCA national director Alicia Gallardo valued the ruling of the country's Supreme Court.
"With this decision, the country's Supreme Court ratifies our strategy of controlling illegal fishing in all production stages, especially in what we call post-capture stages, and where the main illegality is the non-accreditation of the legal origin of the resources that are processed or marketed," she said. "SERNAPESCA inspection plan is designed based on the risk of greater impact on the sustainability of resources and for that reason our focus is on the control of this part of the production chain."
For his part, SERNAPESCA regional director Guillermo Mery stressed that for the first time a sentence is obtained with closure to a plant in the area, considering that these companies must have Legal Origin Accreditation of the resources they process and not only backing up on dispatch guides.
"Effective closure is incorporated into the penalty, which for our region is unprecedented and incorporates the accreditation of legal origin, which is a great precedent in what follows in the next trials because it is one of the main causes of infringement of the origin where the resource comes from, and that is our fight against illegal fishing, to prove the origin of the resources," said Mery.
SERNAPESCA Atacama attorney Eduardo Roig explained that in the first case the court sentenced the company for the possession of 2,500 kilos of black kelp resource in violation of the ban, the payment of 30 UTM and the closure for three days. In the second case, the company was convicted of possession of 1,420 kilos of the Chilean kelp in violation of the regional quota, and was sentenced to pay 30 UTM and to the closure for three days. In both cases, Roig added, the key to the ruling is that it also condemns the possession of the biological resource, "the omission of the company's background and the absence of the legal origin of the resource."
In this sense, SERNAPESCA regional director emphasized the role of merchants and plants to combat the illegality in seaweed harvesting.
This fishery is one of the most relevant in the Atacama region, with exports this year amounting to more than 16,000 tons of black kelp and Chilean kelp at prices that fluctuate between USD 1,3 and USD 1,4 per kilo.
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