GREENPEACE HAILS SUPREME COURT DECISION TO BAR THE "AMERICAN MONARCH" SUPER FACTORY SHIP FROM CHILEAN SOUTHERN FISHERIES.

Santiago, 17 November, 1997

Greenpeace South Pacific (Chile) sees the Supreme Court decision to bar the "American Monarch" factory vassel from entering Chilean waters as a positive step in defending the country's natural resources. The High Court of Justice thus rejected an appeal by "Aker/RGI/Norway Seafoods Co.", the world's largest private transnational fishing corporation, against the Under Secretary Office for Fishing Affairs's decision not to authorize the "American Monarch" to operate in Chilean Southern hake fisheries.

This unprecedented goverment decision to oppose an investment mega project by a company that already controls over 10% of the world's "white fishing", was taken under active opposition by the Chilean National Craft Fishermen Federation (Conapach), by Aysen industrial fishing vessel crew unions and by Greenpeace. These organizations were actively supported both in Norway, where the Aker/RGI originally comes from, as in Seattle (USA), where the factory ship is currently berthed. They also had the support of several India citizen and fishermen organizations, as well as of that country's Fishermen Forum of 6 million fishermen who fight against the entry of trawel factory ships to their fisheries.

For Greenpeace Chile, the Supreme Court decision is a great triumph in the struggle of craft fishermen, consumers and environmentalists to defended the oceans and ocean resources on a global scale, as well as a strong signal to goverments and the fishing industry about the political and environmental non feasibility of international attemps to industrialize and privatize world fishing resources.

However, GREENPEACE WARNS PUBLIC OPINION and consumers that the "American Monarch" is but the tip of an iceberg of many factors threatening the stability of Chilean fishing resources, Southern ecosystems and national food security, as efforts are now underway to "research" Southern fishing which are about to collapse; attempts to grant fishing permits for tail hake and three fin hake to an industrial "cerquera" fleet which would exceed the "American Monarch" intended catch volume, and efforts to covertly privatize Southern fishing resources that are a common property of all Chilean citizens.

---