In Chile, locos are prized above any other shellfish. The molluscs – a delicacy renowned worldwide as Chilean abalone – are served with green onion sauce, in seafood stews or with empanadas.
So when loco stocks collapsed in the 1980s due to overfishing, Chile’s government implemented a groundbreaking scheme, Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries (Turfs), which gave fishing communities exclusive rights over their local areas in exchange for managing stocks of abalone shellfish responsibly.
