Abstract

The brown bull-kelp Durvillaea antarctica (Chamisso), is an ecosystem engineer species distributed from Coquimbo to Cape Horn in the rocky intertidal and subtidal. This resource is of high commercial importance in central and southern Chile and is an artisanal fishery that operates mainly under an open-access regime. This resource provides the domestic market with direct food and the international market with raw materials for the alginate industry. In recent years, the algal population has exhibited a sharp increase in landings due to increased exports, which could negatively affect the sustainability of this fishery. In this study, the situation of the D. antarctica algae fishery on the coast of the Maule Region in central Chile during the last two decades (2000–2021) was evaluated using the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) conceptual framework. The findings show that the dynamics of the fishery are influenced by high international demand, which has promoted an increase in landing (pressure) from 2005 to the present, with the maximum recorded in 2017, of 732 tonnes. This, as a reaction to driving forces constituted by social (increase in the number of fisher) and economic (first sale price) factors. Furthermore, the negative effects on the “state” of the resource population and the species with which it interacts have not been fully examined, and the negative economic “impacts” are a consequence of the reduction in fishermen's revenues, high percentage of informal labor, and the delayed “response” of the fishery's governance. Efforts should be redoubled to integrate —within a holistic analytical framework— the variables and interactions that improve our ability to understand and anticipate unexpected responses. © 2024 Elsevier Ltd