Chileans spread the word on aquaculture advances

Chile’s Mesoregional Sustainable Salmon Strategic Programme (PEM Sustainable Salmon) and Fish Farming Expert’s Chilean sister site, Salmonexpert, are the other partners in the alliance, which is intended to complement existing communications efforts by the salmon farming industry.

PEM Sustainable Salmon is part of the Chilean government’s push to change production and move towards a more sophisticated, specialised, diverse and innovative economy. 

Poster

The first act of the alliance will be to publish a poster highlighting facts relating to the sustainability of the industry and its relationship with the environment. It will be distributed to all stakeholders in the industry, including communities where salmon farming takes place.

Erich Guerrero, executive editor of Salmonexpert, said: “There is a lot of ignorance about various positive aspects of the sector, in progress achieved and real contributions, beyond the generation of employment. Therefore, the publication of the poster as the first initiative of the alliance, aims to unite us to disseminate advances of the salmon industry in key aspects related to sustainability, both in production and society.

“It is intended to generate a greater sense of identity and belonging among people who work in the industry, through concrete and reliable data, presented in a graphic way, of the positive impacts of salmonid production activity. 

“We also want to promote a different attitude, a new way of relating to the environment, which we will address with various actions that will be communicated shortly.”

Transparent information

Gonzalo Romero, general manager of PEM Sustainable Salmon, said: “One of the inalienable elements of this sector is its close relationship with the territory where it operates.

“The only way to work effectively and coherently with the environment is to make the information transparent at different levels, so that the community in general becomes immersed in the actions of the industry, draws its own conclusions and understands the benefits that this industry has generated for the country.”

For Cargill, the relationship with the community is one of the “five pillars” is bases its business on.

“When we enter a new market, we see that it is the country that welcomes us and gives us the opportunity to operate there, which is a great responsibility. We feel the duty to invest in the community to work together to obtain a ‘social licence’ to operate, it is a fundamental part in the management of the business,” said Hugo Contreras, managing director of Cargill Aqua Nutrition (CQN). 

“In the case of Chile, we are focused on three areas in particular as part of our strategic plan for community relations, which have to do with education, sustainability and economic development. And, for each area we have strategic partners and an Action Plan that we are actively developing,” he explained.