A morning of at times cold and low cloud cover was not an impediment for more than twenty fourth and fifth grade children from the Balneario Cachagua School to be the protagonists of the inaugural party of the Cachagua TURF-Reserve.

The activity marked an important milestone in a history that began in 2020 between the Cachagua Artisanal Fishers Union and Capital Azul Foundation, whose TURF-Reserves program is supported by the BHP Foundation. This is a collaborative effort through which the union designated 10 hectares of its Territorial User Rights for Fisheries (TURF or AMERB in Spanish) for conservation. Thus, the Cachagua TURF-Reserve, located between Las Cujas beach and the Cachagua Island Natural Monument, aims to restore the marine-coastal ecosystem and at the same time improve the livelihoods of the union and their families.

The event began at Las Cujas beach, the union’s former landing point. There, union members told sea-scented stories of how they worked years ago, supported by old photographs from a time when boats landed on the same beach.

Guided by members of the union, the Capital Azul team and ecotourism students from the Andrés Bello University, the committee, made up mostly of children, but also members of local organizations and authorities, continued south towards other stations that sought to rescue the historical memory of the union, as well as the history behind the creation of the Cachagua TURF-Reserve and the marine biodiversity that can be found in the area.

At the Cachagua Island Natural Monument station, marine life revealed itself in all its splendor: Humboldt penguins, chungungos (chilean sea otter), cormorants and other species of seabirds captured the attention of those who attended the activity. However, the dolphins, who even jumped out of the water, awakened the emotions of young and old alike, were the ones who drew screams of surprise and amazement.

A closing ceremony was held on Cachagua’s Playa Grande beach, where other actors from various public institutions and civil society organizations joined in, all of them called to work together for ocean’s conservation.

A collective task

“If we don’t take care of the few resources we have, no one will have them. The species that inhabit “Penguin Island” will have no way to feed themselves in the future, and so will our children and families. It is with this in mind that we began the work to destine a significant area of our TURF for the creation of the TURF-Reserve, which is a marine protection area that will be the hope of species and people, people with whom we will work side by side to protect this great treasure, which belongs to everyone”, were some of the words of Manuel Figueroa, president of the Cachagua Fishers’ Union.

“It has been more than three years working together with the union, and now, with its official inauguration, the Cachagua TURF-Reserve begins a stage of opening up to the local community so that everyone can join in and become actively involved in this collective task of restoring the coastal marine ecosystems,” said Rodrigo Sánchez Grez, executive director of Capital Azul Foundation, adding that “we will soon implement a system of coastal surveillance cameras with artificial intelligence to support the day-to-day surveillance work carried out by the Cachagua Fishers’ Union, but we know that this will not be enough until we all commit ourselves to the care of this TURF-Reserve, which is located a few meters from one of the largest populations of Humboldt penguins in the country and a very important natural heritage of the Zapallar town”.

Meanwhile, Stefan Gelcich, co-founder of Capital Azul and director of the SECOS Millennium Institute in Coastal Socio-Ecology, explained that “the inauguration of these TURF-Reserves is key. The whole process behind the TURF-Reserves has been a process of co-construction of knowledge, where scientific knowledge has been key to establish and guide some of these elements, such as where the reserve is located and how the recovery patterns of these species will be. On the other hand, local knowledge has been key to find ways to take care of these reserves and to be able to monitor in a simple way some of the effects that occur there.”

The inauguration of the Cachagua TURF-Reserve, the first after the Benthic Law was enacted earlier this year, which legally recognizes TURF-Reserves as Voluntary Protection Areas, is added to those previously held at the Zapallar and Maitencillo TURF-Reserves, three of the five that are part of Capital Azul Foundation’s TURF-Reserve program.

“We have seen on the field the enthusiasm that the TURF-Reserves awaken in coastal communities and artisanal fishers are just beginning to notice the positive impact of this model, which combines conservation and sustainable use of marine resources. We hope to grow together with the Coastal Community Network that we have been promoting since 2023, so that there will be more and more reserves of this type: three have already been inaugurated in the Valparaíso region, two more are coming and one in the south of Chile”, explained Alejandra Garcés, director of BHP Foundation Chile’s program.

For his part, Mayor Gustavo Alessandri Bascuñán said that “we are very happy to be the first municipality in Chile to have two TURF-reserves (already inaugurated). We are happy for the collaborative work between the Cachagua Fishers’ Union, Capital Azul, the municipality and the community to protect and care for the environment and the Pacific Ocean. This is the way we work today, and it is the way in which public-private alliances are recognized. And in regard to nature: we are convinced that this is the work for the future of the next generations of our country”.