Chile

Blue Marine’s project in Chile focuses on the kelp forests of Patagonia that spread through the Pacific fjords of Chile. The world’s largest schools of squid migrate northward here, followed by predators — including industrial fishers, who are collapsing the populations. Humpback, blue, sei and right whales also travel up the coastlines.   

Blue Marine’s partners here include Rewilding Chile, Patagonia Azul, SeaLegacy, Patagonia Projects and Defendamos Chiloe. Together we target overfishing and bycatch, industrial salmon farming, destructive trawling, and degradation of habitats — most effectively through identifying key biodiversity areas and creating marine protected areas (MPAs) that work for the environment and coastal communities.  

In Chile, our partners Defendamos Chiloe are expelling salmon farms from protected areas and ecological hotspots. In 2023, our team undertook an expedition with SeaLegacy and Chile’s Minister of Environment on to highlight the importance of the fjords and to push for their increased protection. The Patagonia projects team have also sailed the research vessel ‘Soairse’ to remote marine eco-regions, collecting data to support conservation measures and improve our understanding of this wild underwater world. Blue Marine’s scientists are collating this data to help local NGOs, such as Rewilding Chile and Patagonia Azul, designate in-shore MPAs.

In 2024, Blue Marine continued to support the campaign of local partner Defendamos Chiloé in protected areas of Chilean Patagonia to close more than 420 salmon farms. An industry linked with the intensive use of antibiotics, plastic pollution, eutrophication and broader ecosystem degradation. A video screened in New York’s Times Square highlighted the number of farms in protected Patagonia and showed two whales found dead. 

Through the campaign and pressure from local organisations, an agreement was signed between the government and two salmon farming companies, withdrawing nine aquaculture concessions from national parks in the Aysén and Magallanes regions. Defendamos Chiloé is also spearheading campaigns such as ‘Apoyamos Los ECMPO’ (‘We Support ECMPOs’), which promotes marine coastal spaces of indigenous peoples (ECMPOs) as a tool for marine protection. The campaign had an impact on votes in regional commissions for the use of coastal space in several districts with vital habitats for Patagonian marine biodiversity.  

We continue to support Patagonia Projects and their research vessel, ‘Saoirse’. Earlier in the year, the team focused on cetacean monitoring. Dr Vreni Häussermann, who has been collaborating with Patagonia Projects since 2015, also discovered a novel and undescribed form of Chilean sea-whip reproduction, highlighting the mysteries that remain hidden in the marine ecosystems of Patagonia. 

Summaries of Blue Marine and Patagonia Project’s work to date can be found below:  

• Studying baleen whales in the Golfo de Penas  

• Benthic marine life in Chilean Patagonia  

• Cetacean acoustics in the Golfo de Penas  

• Community engagement in marine conservation issues  

• Documenting species and biodiversity in Chilean Patagonia  

• Dolphin and orca behaviour studies and individual identification  

• Long-term monitoring of oceanic conditions in the Golfo de Penas  

• Photo, video and art outreach for marine conservation in Patagonia  

• Monitoring the after-effects of the largest baleen whale mass mortality event ever recorded  

Partners  

Rewilding Chile, SeaLegacy, Patagonia Azul, Patagonia Projects and Defendamos Chiloe.  

Species and Photograph credits: Chilean dolphins Cephalorhynchus eutropia Carla Christie