November 1966 



COMMERCIAL FISHERIES REVIEW 



49 



Chile (Contd.): 



could not possibly use it all, even if they 

 wanted to. However, the coasts of Latin 

 America- -especially western Latin Amer- 

 ica- -are extremely rich in edible seafood. 

 To eliminate the present protein consumption 

 deficit by 1980 in all of Latin America, it 

 would be necessary to increase fish produc- 

 tion by 2,000,000 metric tons edible weight, 

 or about 4,000,000 tons of fish, round weight. 



These figures caused the California Free- 

 dom from Hunger Committee to consider 

 means of assisting the sm.all fishermen of 

 Puerto Montt, Chile, and neighboring Chiloe 

 and Tenglo islands at the beginning of the 

 vast southern archipelago. 



FFHC observers quickly noticed that 

 troubles in the fishing centers just outside 

 Puerto Montt did not come from, any lack of 

 fish. There is great variety there and many 

 shellfish, including oysters, scallops, sea 

 urchins, hard clams, soft shell clams, razor 

 clams, king crabs, lobsters, giant mussels, 

 and Picos, or giant acornshell. But with poor 

 equipment it was sometimes difficult to catch 

 them and, above all, to preserve and ship 

 them. No one yet has been able to estimate 

 the hundreds of thousands of tons of fish that 

 could be taken from these incredibly rich 

 southern waters without improverishingthem. 

 But today there are no facilities for preserv- 

 ing or shipping them properly to distant mar- 

 kets. One FAO report estimates that in some 

 seasons probably half the catch becomes 

 spoiled and is thrown back into the sea. Re- 

 alizing this, the California Committee of the 

 Freedom from Hunger Campaign decided to 

 establish a Fisheries Rehabilitation Project 

 after the disastrous 1960 earthquake in South- 

 ern Chile. 



Rehabilitation Project Started 



The Committee has donated diving suits 

 for the oyster fishermen and has studied the 

 possibility of erecting salting and drying 

 sheds and an ice plant. The difficulties in 

 carrying out any ambitious crash programs 

 are in some ways peculiar to the region it- 

 self; the region owes its rich sea life to its 

 remoteness and the corresponding near -im- 

 possibility of getting fish to any sizable mar- 

 ket. Drying sheds, or tunnels, for instance, 

 are not needed primarily to reduce the fish's 

 weight for shipping— not to conserve fish.which 

 can be done almost as effectively with salt. 



^-<J 



Fig. 1 -Diver collecting oysters in waters off SouUiern Chile. 

 They are so plentiful that diver can fill a basket in a few min- 

 utes. (Photo by S. Larrain) 



Fig. 2 - Shellfish are held in the recurring tides to keep them 

 alive before they are marketed by a fishermen's cooperative 

 in Southern Chile. (Photo by S. Larrain) 



FFHC officials envisage the final stage of 

 the project as the building of the first ice 

 plant. AH these projects would use local la- 

 bor and thus would assist the economy. 



While the project is still modest, some 

 idea of its possible future importance can be 

 seen in the fact that even now on the west 



