Chilean authorities have announced that they are monitoring the transit of a fleet of foreign origin, particularly from China.

The Chilean Navy, together with the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service (Sernapesca), has announced that the vessels will be traveling from the Atlantic Ocean to the Central Pacific fishing zones and will therefore cross the Exclusive Economic Zone.

The entities indicated that the vessels are controlled and supervised through the satellite tracking system they use and the existing observation network and excluded that fishing tasks are carried out in national space. They revealed that they are in the catch of red squid.

“It’s an important fleet, there are about 600 ships off the coast of Argentina; They then head towards the Pacific and arrive as far as the Galapagos Islands, between 250 and 450 of those 600 ships. Last year, for example, we had almost 200 ships, the same number as in 2021, but we always keep in mind that this number may increase,” said Sernapesca’s national director, Soledad Tapia.

This fleet also heads to the Atlantic Ocean to fish off the coast of Argentina. The authorities indicated that no illegal acts have been registered so far.

The aim is primarily to verify that no extractive activities are being carried out in national waters by foreign vessels and, if discovered, to take appropriate legal action, Tapia added.

In the same way, on the high seas, it is verified that the operations of the fleets comply with the conservation measures established in the regional fisheries organizations of which our country is part or an associate, with the aim of safeguarding national maritime interests, ensuring sustainable fishing and the prevention, deterrence and elimination of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing,” he concluded.

For years, several local and international NGOs have denounced that the abundance of fishing boats of different nationalities, especially Chinese, stationed on the Antarctic coast is the main cause of the deterioration of the marine fauna and flora in the Strait of Magellan and the chronification of harmful phenomena such as the red tide.