"We must seek solutions, as well as identify gaps or problems and have the time to correct them," mentioned one of the sources.

This week, in the Los Lagos and Aysén regions, an unprecedented exercise was carried out with the main objective of verifying the response capacity of public and private organizations facing a new environmental contingency due to harmful algal blooms (FAN, also known as blooms)

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The exercise started in each region with a Disaster Risk Management Committee (Cogrid) in which the regional ministers (seremis) of Health, Environment, Energy, Economy, Transport and Housing participated; as well as representatives of the different institutions that make up the Interinstitutional Environmental Contingencies Committee (CIICA)including the Superintendence of the Environment (SMA), the Directorate of Fisheries and Aquaculture (Subpesca), the General Directorate of the Maritime Territory and Merchant Marine (Directemar), the National Service of Fisheries and Aquaculture (Sernapesca), the National Service of Prevention and Response to Disasters (Senapred) and the Fishing Development Institute (IFOP).

In representation of Directemar -a body dependent on the Navy-, the commander in chief of the Fifth Naval Zone, Alejandro Torres, stated that this action "makes us all think, because we must seek solutions, as well as identify gaps or problems and have the time to correct them".

The regional director of Sernapesca Los Lagos, Cristian Hudson, complemented the words of Torres and expressed that it is an "interesting and necessary activity, which seeks to be able to generate all the preventive coordination to manage it as best as possible," both in our role as a State and in the industry itself, the contingencies that may eventually occur.

This simulation adds to the information and dissemination process that CIICA started at the beginning of September, in order to make known the proactive work that the different public institutions are carrying out for face the possible consequences of the El Niño phenomenon which, according to various scientists, will arrive this summer season with an intensity that requires being prepared.

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*Image source featured and interior: courtesy of Sernapesca.