UCM Expert Offers Workshops to Fishing Unions

Fernando Berríos, PhD in Applied Sciences, has met with six organizations of fishermen and workers in related activities on the Maule coast.

Identifying the opportunities and challenges faced by artisanal fishing is the objective of the workshops given by Fernando Berríos, an academic from the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of Maule (CIEAM), to fishing unions in the region.

This is the first approach of the scientific precinct, belonging to the UCM, to groups of fishermen, filleters and shore gatherers.

“It is necessary for the academy to get closer to where the potatoes are burning, because sometimes we see ourselves as very distant. It is necessary to raise concerns, problems or projects hand in hand with the fishermen,” said the doctor of Applied Sciences, mentioning coastal marine systems, after conducting a workshop in the Unión Pacífica Duao-Iloca union.

“The members of this organization expressed as the main challenge the construction of a headquarters, which they do not have, but as the conversation went on they expressed another problem, such as the overexploitation of resources. They are aware that the resources must be sustained over time and that is why they are requesting a management area, which serves not only to conserve resources, but also to repopulate crops,” he said.

The marine ecologist, who carried out the first comprehensive study in Chile on cochayuyo, said that the dynamic of the workshops consists of organizing the information provided by the participants in a problem-solution matrix. Once this phase is completed,” he said, ‘they are asked to prioritize the problems identified, considering a five-year horizon for addressing them, which makes it possible to establish a realistic and orderly development plan based on the needs of the unions’.

The workshops, which have also been held in Constitución, Pellines and Lipimávida, are part of a project financed by the “Subvención a la Instalación en la Academia” contest of the National Agency for Research and Development, ANID.

“I am very grateful for this instance, because we do not always have the possibility to reflect and because it made the film very clear to us. We must safeguard the resources because in a few more years, we will have nothing. There are practically no more limpets, loons and snails and that worries us because we want the new generations to know the products and try them,” said Loreto Guajardo, president of the Duao group, which brings together 41 fishermen, divers and shore gatherers.

A virtuous alliance

For the regional director of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Manira Matamala, the initiative of the Universidad Católica del Maule reaffirms the virtuous alliance of the campus with the territory, where the fishing sector is 100 percent artisanal.

“The diagnostic work of artisanal fishing that Professor Berríos is carrying out in the coves will undoubtedly contribute to the design of development plans for each organization visited. The fact that he can systematize the pains and problems and the probable solutions is a very necessary tool to be able to develop in the near future, programs or lines of work in which the State should invest”, she indicated.

More than 12,000 people in the region depend on this activity, both economically and in terms of identity.

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