It’s a sunny morning in the port town of Talcahuano, in Chile’s Biobio region. From the wheelhouse of the Capello, Cesar Jorquera, a fourth-generation fisher, sees his past and future unfolding in real time.
For nearly a quarter-century, Cesar’s family has fished the cold, nutrient-rich waters of the Southern Pacific Ocean, home to roughly 20% of the world’s seafood catch.
Before whaling was outlawed in 1986, Cesar’s family relied on hunting these megafauna for their livelihood. Today, Cesar and the fishermen in his community are focused on a much smaller, but still mighty, form of life – schools of anchoveta and sardines that number in the millions, their schools roiling and darkening the water for miles on end.
Even artisanal fishers like Cesar, who typically operate on boats of 18 meters or less, are permitted to catch up to 80 tons per day. Chile’s sardines and anchoveta are used for fishmeal and fish oil. But their value goes far beyond economics.
These small, oily fish are a cornerstone of ocean life. They eat plankton—tiny drifting plants and animals that are like grass in the ocean—and convert it into energy that bigger animals can use. In doing so, sardines and anchoveta support nearly every predator in the sea, including the whales Cesar’s family once hunted. At this base level of the food chain, they make up 22% of the diet of seabirds, 15% of marine mammal diets, and account for 34% of the catch in commercial fisheries worldwide. Without them, the ocean’s dinner table would be nearly empty.
About 10 years ago, Cesar became president of the Artisanal Fishers Association of San Vicente, which now includes 50 sardine and anchoveta fishermen. While he now spends more time managing the fishery than on the water, he continues to contribute through the collection of critical data to keep the fishery stable and healthy.
Prior to 2019, the sardine and anchoveta fishery was plagued by underreporting, with as much as 25% of catch unreported. Without accurate numbers, the resource became nearly impossible to manage, threatening both the long-term viability of the fishery and the livelihoods of those who relied on it. While larger boats have been required to report their catch for some time, smaller boats were not held to the same standard.
Oceana Chile, a Walton Family Foundation partner, worked with the Chilean government and local fishers to modernize the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service (Sernapesca) to extend certification and monitoring for smaller boats. Since 2019, the passage of the law has lowered the percentage of underreporting to between just 2% and 5%.
“VMS [Vessel Monitoring Systems] data allows for the fishery to select fishing places,” says Liesbeth van der Meer, senior vice president at Oceana. “As of today, there is a big portion of the fishing season that they can’t go fishing because even if one small part of the distribution is undersized, the whole fishery needs to close. If VMS is fully implemented in 100% of the fleet, then they will be able to select the places they fish.”
The foundation supports this work as part of our belief that real change must be guided by the people who are most reliant on a healthy ocean. To do this, we help build the capacity of fishing communities to advocate for better practices and leverage opportunities, maximizing the social and economic benefits that sustainably managed fisheries provide.
“The length of the vessel shouldn’t matter. All boats should have to follow the same rules.”
Cesar says that while regulations have stabilized the fishery, climate change continues to make his job, and the job of the fishers he represents – a challenge. “The fishery is very healthy, but the availability is different now. It used to be more concentrated, and you could go with just one vessel. Now, [the fish] are all around.”
As the climate continues to shift and impact migratory marine species, Oceana also helped shift fisheries management from a calendar year to a biological year model, allowing for more dynamic decision-making.
While biological-year management provides more flexibility, it is not a perfect system. “This year, we started too early,” says Cesar. “Next year we will estimate better…and learn when to go fishing for the first time,” which marks the beginning of the season.
In an effort to monitor the fishery and also help find the fish, vessel monitoring systems are mandatory on fishing vessels longer than 12 meters. Artisanal fishermen operating smaller vessels – under 12 meters in length – are participating in a pilot program with Oceana to install and run low-cost systems on their boats.
“The length of the vessel shouldn’t matter,” says Cesar. “All boats should have to follow the same rules.”
The data collected is helping provide real-time insights into fishing activity and also identify illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing.
Critically, VMS helps fishermen like Cesar know when to kick off their season, helping them know exactly when the fish enter their fishery zone.
“Having eyes on the ocean through VMS data has many benefits, for the health of the fisheries, for management informed decisions and fishing strategies, but also, and most important, it can save lives in case of accidents,” says Liesbeth. “We could know in real time where they are.”
As the climate continues to change and the fish continue to move, Cesar is cautiously optimistic that greater adoption of technology and widespread agreement on the importance of responsible management will preserve an important – if not changing – way of life.
“We used to fish for eight months and have four months of closed season. Now, we fish for four months and are closed for eight.” But thanks to monitoring, Cesar says they are able to catch the same amount of fish in much less time. “It’s a good thing. I approve. Because it opens up opportunity and value to do other things,” like fish for jack mackerel, another pelagic species.
As Cesar gets older and spends less time on the boats, he thinks more often about who will carry on the family tradition. “None of my sons are fishermen, for now they work in repairing vessels and dehydrating sardines. But they still have some years to go, and they could change their minds.”
