Christian Molinari

Christian Molinari

Contributing Editor

A native of San Francisco, Christian Molinari has lived and worked in Chile for over 20 years, after having arrived in Santiago as a volunteer and falling in love with the culture and its people. He covered business news in Latin America for over a decade, worked in communications at IBM Chile, and currently freelances in strategic communications and reporting.


Author Archive

Published on
February 22, 2024

Chile’s government has kicked off the new year by reinforcing the message that its salmon industry, which rakes in USD 6 billion (EUR 5.6 billion) a year, must toe the line when it comes to environmental stewardship.

Emphasizing this message, the Chilean Superintendence of the Environment (SMA) sent its first mass notification of the year to owners of 223 salmon grow-out centers (CES, as per the Spanish acronym) regarding their ongoing

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Published on
February 19, 2024

Steen-Hansen, a Kylkje, Norway-based company that provides antifouling products and coatings for aquaculture nets, has obtained approval from Chilean authorities, enabling it to sell its copper-free antifouling solution that uses the biocide Econea.

Chilean maritime authority Directemar’s approval makes Steen-Hansen the only aquaculture supplier with approved copper-free products, which the company will market to the Chilean aquaculture

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Published on
February 16, 2024

Washington D.C., U.S.A.-based Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) – a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of farm animals raised for food production – is launching its Certified Humane credential specifically for farmed salmon.

The certification scheme, which is the organization's first standard it has developed for fish or seafood, will initially be targeted at Chilean producers, according to Humane Farm Animal Care Global

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Published on
February 13, 2024

Officials are investigating the cause of a fire in southern Chile that destroyed the Entrevientos salmon processing plant, which is jointly owned by salmon farmers Multiexport and Blumar.

The fire at the plant, located in Punta Arenas, in Chile’s Magallanes Region, began the morning of 11 February. Seven of Punta Arenas’s eight fire stations – representing 95 percent of the city’s fire fighters – responded to the

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Published on
February 13, 2024

A top executive in Peru’s anchovy sector has warned that the country’s south anchovy-fishing zone is in peril and should be a point of emphasis for the nation’s seafood industry at large when determining the most important issues to address in 2024.

Peru divides its anchovy-fishing areas into two regions – south and north-central – with different capture limits and seasons set for each. The north-central zone is

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Published on
February 5, 2024

Peru boasts the largest fishery by volume in the world, catching several million metric tons (MT) of anchovies each year.

However, Peru’s anchoveta fishery ran into major issues in 2023, with its first fishing season canceled altogether and the other coming to an early close due to the rapid arrival of the spawning season. While the sector’s industrial fishing companies, led by Peru’s National Fisheries Society (SNP), recognize

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Published on
January 25, 2024

Ecuador is actively seeking to increase its tuna exports to the U.S. and Canada, as its shipments to Europe – the largest market for the product – have continued to fall.

Historically, Ecuador has exported an average of 250,000 metric tons (MT) of tuna annually, of which 51 percent goes to Europe, 13 percent to the United States, and the rest to Latin American countries, bringing in a total of some USD 1.3 billion (EUR 1.19 billion).

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Published on
January 19, 2024

Chilean government authorities have signed an agreement with representatives of AquaChile and Cooke Aquaculture to remove the companies’ concessions in national parks and adjacent areas, relocating them to spots that are not under environmental protection.

Removing salmon farms from protected areas has been a priority of Chile President Gabriel Boric since he took office in March 2022. In November of that year, Chile’s Undersecretary

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Published on
January 18, 2024

The creditors of struggling Chilean salmon farmer Nova Austral have finally approved a restructuring plan for the company, which it has been attempting to finalize ever since June 2023 when its first attempt at doing so failed.

After that failed restructuring attempt, Norwegian-owned Nova Austral – reportedly more than USD 550 million (EUR 506 million) in debt – went back to the drawing board to present an updated reorganization

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Published on
January 12, 2024

Ecuador’s Corporation of Exporting Organizations (CORDEX) – of which the Ecuadorian National Aquaculture Chamber (CNA) is a member – has released a statement condemning the wave of violence that has battered the country at the start of 2024.

“We repudiate the acts of violence that have been unleashed in the country, attacking the integrity of citizens and affecting various productive sectors and the media. In this regard,

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