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Fishing for Food and Fodder: The Transnational Environmental History of Humboldt Current Fisheries in Peru and Chile since 1945 by Kristin Wintersteen Department of History Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ John D. French, Supervisor ___________________________ Edward Balleisen ___________________________ Jocelyn Olcott ___________________________ Gunther Peck ___________________________ Thomas Rogers ___________________________ Peter Sigal Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 i v ABSTRACT Fishing for Food and Fodder: The Transnational Environmental History of Humboldt Current Fisheries in Peru and Chile since 1945 by Kristin Wintersteen Department of History Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ John D. French, Supervisor ___________________________ Edward Balleisen ___________________________ Jocelyn Olcott ___________________________ Gunther Peck ___________________________ Thomas Rogers ___________________________ Peter Sigal An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 Copyright by Kristin Wintersteen 2011 Abstract This dissertation explores the history of industrial fisheries in the Humboldt Current marine ecosystem where workers, scientists, and entrepreneurs transformed Peru and Chile into two of the top five fishing nations after World War II. As fishmeal industrialists raided the oceans for proteins to nourish chickens, hogs, and farmed fish, the global “race for fish” was marked by the clash of humanitarian goals and business interests over whether the fish should be used to ameliorate malnutrition in the developing world or extracted and their nutrients exported as mass commodities, at greater profit, as a building block for the food chain in the global North. The epicenter of the fishmeal industry in the 1960s was the port city of Chimbote, Peru, where its cultural, social, and ecological impacts were wrenching. After overfishing and a catastrophic El Niño changed the course of Peruvian fisheries in 1972, Chile came to dominate world markets by the early 1980s due to shifting marine ecologies along its coast that shaped the trajectory of the ports of Iquique and Talcahuano. As Peruvian anchoveta stocks recovered in the 1990s, new environmentalist voices—from local residents to international scientists—emerged to contest unsustainable fisheries practices. This study demonstrates how global, transnational, and translocal connections shaped Humboldt Current fisheries as people struggled to understand the complex correlation between fish populations, extractive activity, and oceanic oscillations within a changing geopolitical context. iv Contents Abstract..........................................................................................................................................iv List of Figures.............................................................................................................................viii List of Abbreviations....................................................................................................................ix Acknowledgements......................................................................................................................xi Introduction....................................................................................................................................1 Chapter One. Expanding the Oceanic Frontier and Claiming its Bounty: Pacific Tuna Wars, the International Law of the Sea, and the Chile-Ecuador-Peru Alliance..................34 1.1. Elusive catch: Pacific fisheries expansion and the 200-mile claim, 1941-1952......49 1.2. Testing the limits of resource claims: From “whale war” to modus vivendi, 1952- 1967....................................................................................................................................64 1.3. Until the bitter end: Tuna Wars and the military regimes of Peru and Ecuador, 1967-1982..........................................................................................................................83 Conclusion..............................................................................................................................98 Chapter Two. Protein From the Sea: The Global Rise of Fishmeal and the Industrialization of Southeast Pacific Fisheries.....................................................................101 2.1. The California pre-history of fishmeal: Expanding business empires and the birth of modern oceanographic science in the “Pacific fisheries frontier,” 1918- 1964..................................................................................................................................108 2.2. The challenge of hunger: The FAO mission and the rise of national fisheries in Chile and Peru in the post-World War II era............................................................119 2.3. Collapse and boom: North-South currents in fishmeal industrialization, 1950- 1971..................................................................................................................................140 2.4. Closing the "Protein Gap": The Ghostly Afterlife of Fish Protein Concentrate (FPC) in the 1960s..........................................................................................................153 v Conclusion............................................................................................................................163 Chapter Three. The smell of money: Visions of progress and cultures of excess in boomtown Chimbote, Peru.......................................................................................................168 3.1. Abundance and opportunity: From coastal hamlet to “the Peruvian Pittsburgh”.................................................................................................................... 176 3.2. The “promised land” becomes the “problem city”................................................184 3.3. From steel to fishmeal: Realizing the dream of industrialization........................197 3.4. The fate of fishmeal and the “revolution from above”..........................................218 Conclusion............................................................................................................................225 Chapter Four. From Anchoveta and Sardines to Jack Mackerel: Shifting Ocean Ecologies and the Translocal Dynamism of the Chilean Fishmeal Industry after 1972....................228 4.1. From Talcahuano to Iquique and Crash: The Trajectory of Chilean Fisheries to 1965........................................................................................................................................232 4.2. Translocal migrations and Talcahuano’s rise to primacy......................................250 4.3. Peru’s return to fishmeal supremacy, the rise of local marine conservationism, and the gastronomic revolution........................................................................................266 Conclusion............................................................................................................................277 Conclusion...................................................................................................................................279 Appendix A: Maps....................................................................................................................297 A-1. Political maps of Peru and Chile showing key cities.............................................298 A-2. Currents and Upwellings of the Humboldt Current System...............................299 A-3. Peru (Humboldt) Current as projected by U.S. Army (1943)...............................300 A-4. FAO Fishery area 87: Southeast Pacific....................................................................301 A-5. Southeast Pacific Jack Mackerel (Trachurus murphyi) Fishery..............................302 Appendix B: Biogeographical Information for Humboldt Current Fisheries..................303 vi B-1. Anchoveta.....................................................................................................................304 B-2. Jack Mackerel................................................................................................................305 B-3. Spanish sardine............................................................................................................306 B-4. Hake...............................................................................................................................307 Appendix C: Harvest Data for Humboldt Current Fishes..................................................308 C-1. Anchoveta (Engraulis ringens) harvests, 1950-2005.................................................309 C-2. Spanish Sardine (Sardinops Sagax) harvests, 1950-2005..........................................310 C-3. Jack Mackerel (Trachurus murphyi) harvests, 1950-2005........................................311 Bibliography...............................................................................................................................312 Biography....................................................................................................................................362