Mapuche community requests protection from salmon farms in Chile

Guaitecas reserve contains at least 313 authorized salmon farms

The Mapuche Pu Wapi community submitted the 3,000-hectare application last March and is awaiting Chile’s response. It seeks joint management of waters in the Guaitecas Archipelago under Ley Lafkenche, the 2008 law that allows qualifying Indigenous communities to manage marine and coastal areas with state institutions. Under the law, the state can no longer authorize new concessions, including salmon-farming concessions, within that area once a community applies to manage it.

Daniel Arturo Caniullan Huentel, 52, has worked as a diver for 35 years and is an ancestral authority of the Mapuche Pu Wapi community in Melinka. He is among the most vocal critics of salmon farming in the area.

“The seabed was teeming with life, with colors and animals everywhere. Today it is completely different,” said Caniullan Huentel. “The colors have faded, many species have disappeared and organisms that did not exist before have appeared. Every time a new salmon-farming facility was installed, we saw the impacts increase.”

Under the arrangement, Indigenous communities do not gain ownership of the sea or seabed. It protects ancestral uses, including fishing and gathering shellfish and seaweed, as well as access to sacred sites and areas used for navigation. Communities seeking joint management must demonstrate that they carry out ancestral practices in the proposed area.

The state approved an application from Caniullan Huentel’s community covering 8,000 hectares (19,800 acres) in 2013. It rejected an application for an additional 8,000 hectares (19,800 acres) in 2017 and rejected a request for 350,000 hectares (865,000 acres) in 2024. The community’s smaller application for 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres), submitted last March, remains pending.

More than 40 small islands make up the Guaitecas Archipelago, a gateway to Chile’s Patagonia region and one of the world’s most remote places. The reserve is the country’s largest nature reserve and one of the oldest, having been established in 1938, and contains many endangered marine species.

The national reserve is also home to numerous salmon farms. Chile’s National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service, known as Sernapesca, says at least 313 farms have been authorized in the archipelago. The Associated Press reported that those farms discharge hundreds of tons of chemicals and antibiotics into the sea every year.

Many locals and scientists say salmon farms have severely damaged multiple marine areas, leaving some seabeds with oxygen levels so low that other forms of life struggle to survive. They describe the affected areas as “dead.”

Catalina Sapag, a marine biologist and scientific area coordinator at the nonprofit Oceana in Chile, said intensive salmon farming can affect marine ecosystems in several ways.

“Intensive salmon farming can have various impacts on marine ecosystems. Pollution can result both from the accumulation of organic matter and from the use of chemicals,” she said.

At Melinka, the archipelago’s main island, Yesica Fabiana Leviñanco and Paulo Vera Perez, both in their mid-40s, use a small wooden boat, with Leviñanco steering while Vera Perez dives into the cold ocean waters off the coast of southern Chile. Within a few hours, they fill the boat with shellfish, sea urchins, mussels and crabs that Leviñanco will sell at the market in Melinka. Even a few years ago, such a haul would have been unthinkable.

Leviñanco and Vera Perez said intensive farming damaged the area where they fished, so they began bringing healthy mussels and clams from other places. Friends and family initially thought they were crazy, but over years the work paid off. The area was one Leviñanco had fished throughout her life, and she helped restore it.

“It seems incredible looking at it today, but for years the sea throughout this area was dead,” said Leviñanco. “There were no birds, fish or marine animals. A salmon-farming facility had destroyed everything.” She also said, “The fish, birds and other marine animals came back.”

Despite opposition, particularly in southern Chile, the salmon industry has strong support because it generates many jobs. SalmonChile, a trade association representing many farming companies, said declining fish stocks cannot be attributed solely to salmon farming.

“It may be due to various factors, such as climate change, changes in water temperature, illegal fishing, overexploitation of resources and the introduction of non-native species for recreational fishing. The industry therefore represents only one of the factors at play,” the association said in a statement.

Salmon fishing is a major industry in Chile. The country is the world’s second-largest salmon producer after Norway, and salmon is the Latin American country’s second-most exported product after copper. Sernapesca says Chile produced more than 1 million tonnes of salmon in 2025. The fish is not native to Chilean waters and was first imported from Norway in the 1970s and 1980s, during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

SalmonChile says the United States accounts for 40% of Chile’s salmon exports, valued at $2.6 billion. Japan accounts for 17%, or just over $1 billion, while Brazil accounts for 13%, or $796 million.

For years, intensive salmon farming has been criticized by scientists, environmental advocacy groups, fishers, Indigenous communities and local residents. Those critics have accused the industry of polluting the sea through the large quantities of chemicals used at farms, failing to respect Indigenous rights and breaching workplace safety regulations. Chilean fishers claim that pollution caused by salmon-farming facilities is significantly reducing the abundance of fish and shellfish in the sea.

According to figures provided by the Chilean nonprofit Ecoceanos, 90 workers have died in the industry since 2013. Fatal accidents have ranged from workers becoming entangled while cleaning nets to shipwrecks among vessels in the area.

The Mapuche Pu Wapi community’s 3,000-hectare application remains awaiting a state response. The Associated Press said the story was supported by Journalismfund Europe. The outlet also said its climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations and that it is solely responsible for the content.

“This struggle is not just about us,” said Caniullan Huentel. “It is about the future of the sea, small-scale fishing and generations to come. If we do not defend these territories today, tomorrow we risk permanently losing an immense natural and cultural heritage.”