Situated along the western coast of South America, Chile has an astonishing amount of natural resources, from the otherworldly landscape of the Atacama Desert in the north to the towering mountains of Patagonia in the south, and nearly 4,000 miles of coastline in between. With so much ocean access, it’s no wonder that marine fisheries are one of Chile’s economic pillars, trailing behind the copper, lithium, and molybdenum mining industry. Chile boasts the eighth-largest fishing industry in the world, producing $8.5 billion in seafood exports in 2022—nearly $3 billion more than the U.S. that year. It also provides nourishment and employment to many rural, highly impoverished coastal communities. With nearly 33,000 direct and countless indirect employees, this small but mighty industry is essential to the Chilean economy and culture. With the fishery industry so ingrained in Chilean society, it’s in the country’s best interest to strive for sustainable fisheries to ensure their longevity via scientifically informed management practices and conservation efforts. 

This idea is not new in Chile. Both fishers and the Chilean government have recognized the need for sustainability: in 1989, Congress passed the first iteration of the Ley General de Pesca y Acuicultura, or the General Law on Fisheries and Aquaculture (Law No. 18.892). This nuanced law establishes fishery management guidelines, regulations for extractive fishing in both industrial and artisanal contexts, orders for aquaculture and research, and much more. Subsequent governments have finetuned this emblematic legislation every few years since the early 2000s, making modifications like prohibiting artisanal trawling, regulating genetically modified cultivated species, and altering fishing quotas for a variety of species as necessary. At the start of this year, Chilean President Gabriel Boric signed into law a bill that aims to replace the current, highly contentious version of the law, freeing it of corruption and transforming it into something more sustainable and democratic through scientific substantiation and public participation.

While I would love to write a tell-all about the non-governmental organization innovation in fisheries, global leadership in fisheries transparency, the Global Fishing Watch vessel tracking data, and much, much more, I think we’d be here for quite a while. Exploring the history of la ley de pesca—not to mention the social and ecological ramifications—would be an undertaking suitable for a doctoral dissertation, so maybe I’ll leave that for my next life. Instead, let’s zero in on the component of Chilean fishery management that intrigues me the most as a student at the intersection of natural science, social science, and governance: the territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs) areas.  

The Chilean exclusive economic zone comprises 5 million square kilometers—more than six times the area of the country’s terrestrial territory. Gelcich et al. (2010) provide a useful schematic that delineates where small-scale artisanal, middle-scale artisanal, and industrial fleets typically fish as well as an artisanal fishery exclusive zone extending five miles from the coastline of northern to south-central Chile. Throughout fishing areas, there are three management regimes in place: open access, TURFs, and no-take zones. Aptly named, open-access areas have little to no regulation regarding extractive uses of marine resources, whereas no-take zones strictly prohibit such uses.

TURFs are somewhere in between. These areas are co-managed by fishers themselves in groups known as caletas, which interestingly refers to both the group of people as well as the area where they operate. TURFs, primarily focused on benthic, nearshore species, were established in the 1991 iteration of the ley de pesca, among other crucial components to promote sustainable fishery practices. Fishers advocated for this policy change after experiencing the collapse of the Chilean abalone (also known as the loco) fishery in the 1980s after a rise in export demand. This little mollusk with an iconic swirl in its shell is Chile’s highest-value shellfish, and other management tools like season limits and catch limits failed miserably in preserving its populations from excessive overfishing, leading to a nationwide closure of the fishery from 1989 to 1992. Only the implementation of the TURF management system was able to save the loco from certain extinction. 

The TURF concept has fascinated me since I began working at the Estación Costera de Investigaciones Marinas, where I met Dr. Miriam Fernández and first learned about TURFs from her work. Everyone I worked with there knew about the collapse of the loco fishery, and everyone knew that TURFs were instrumental in avoiding the total destruction of the species. I’ve historically not been very interested in fisheries in general, but I am a huge advocate for biodiversity conservation. I say “historically” because I am now taking a course taught by my advisor, Dr. Anne Beaudreau, on U.S. fisheries management and policy, so it’s safe to say that I’m warming up to learning about fisheries and their management.

At the start of the course, Anne brought up a concept that I had encountered in previous classes and my work with public lands: the tragedy of the commons. Originally published in Science, ecologist Garrett Hardin’s 1968 essay argues that people will tend to selfishly over-use a finite, valuable resource, eroding both the environment and the social fabric as we know it. This idea persists throughout disciplines like ecology and economics, despite the original essay being both extremely bigoted and factually incorrect. Political scholar Susan Jane Buck Cox’s counter essay, “No Tragedy on the Commons”, provides historical evidence that the pastures mentioned in Hardin’s essay were indeed well-regulated by local institutions. What’s more, political economist Dr. Elinor Ostrom’s extensive work on resource management proved that quite the opposite of Hardin’s speculation was true. A famous example from her on-the-ground work involves Swiss farmers that share a meadow to graze their cattle. Rather than experiencing issues from severe overgrazing, as Hardin would have predicted, the meadow is managed collectively by the farmers that use it so that it will remain in good condition for many years to come. And that’s just one instance of many that she’s studied throughout her career in Europe, Latin America, and even the United States. Her work highlights that common pool resources—goods that are available for public consumption but can be overused—can be effectively and sustainably cared for through community management systems that utilize her eight design principles and put the power of resource management into the hands of those using the resource. 

Although TURFs and similar management regimes are not unique to Chile and have been used for centuries, Chile is home to the world’s largest TURF system for managing benthic resources, specifically the loco. And it’s working—research conducted by the Instituto de Fomento Pesquero (Institute for Fishery Development) has demonstrated that loco populations have returned to their once-normal productivity levels and are no longer considered overexploited. TURFs have also been shown to promote species richness, biomass, and density of other invertebrates and fish over time and have the potential to encourage population growth and recruitment of commercially important species in other locations. TURFs clearly play a vital role in achieving both economic and conservation goals.

The success of this system extends beyond the recovery of the loco fishery and the sustainable management of other key Chilean benthic fisheries. The TURF system has also led to a reduction in both management and administrative costs as well as increased the legitimacy of fisher operations and compliance with federal management regulations because the fishers themselves are involved in the management process and directly responsible for their own turf (pun intended). This management regime has also resulted in the collaboration between fishery scientists and fishers as they combine their theoretical and practical knowledge to better inform management. This beautiful union of science, practice, and policy warms the heart of a SMEA student—we come to SMEA to both find and facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations like this. 

Of course, it’s worth mentioning that there are many more parts to this story, like the pros and cons of the loco aquaculture industry and the threat that poaching poses to the TURF system’s success. Unfortunately, each of those topics deserves its own chapter in my hypothetical future dissertation, so you’ll just have to stay tuned for that story. What I can say at this point is that the Chilean TURF management system is not perfect, but it is certainly moving in the right direction. This way, fisheries are managed for the people by the people, and that is exactly what Ostrom’s work on shared resource management prescribes for successful management. A situation that may have once been considered a tragedy of the commons has evolved into a global standard for successful fishery management. ¡Viva el loco, y viva Chile! (Long live the loco, and long live Chile!)