Salmon farming ban revoked by regional government in Argentina
A ban on salmon farm in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, has been overturned by a single vote in the region’s legislature, according to reports.
The local government in Tierra del Fuego passed the law in 2021, but regional legislator Agustín Coto – now a senator - moved to revoke the ban in the face of an economic squeeze. Tourism in Tierra del Fuego has slowed, and the region’s manufacturing sector is facing increasing pressures.
Argentina’s current president, Javier Milei, also favours deregulating the nation’s industries to boost growth.
Seafood Source reported in September that removing the 2021 ban would allow the Tierra del Fuego state government to employ environmental assessments to establish areas suitable for aquaculture but that Coto’s amendment also stressed that “social and economic well-being must be guaranteed without compromising the sustainability of ecosystems”.
A ban on salmon farming ban on the Beagle Channel – a 160-mile strait in the Tierra del Fuego Archipelago – was expected to be maintained.
Waterside protest
A group of local chefs and artisinal fishers staged a protest against the potential repeal of the ban last month.
Their waterside protest at Ushuaia Aeroclub highlighted local gastronomy and regional products, with well-known Argentine chefs Jorge Monopoli and Lino Adillón joining fellow cooks and artisanal fishers to prepare and serve rock cod, clams, mussels, silverside (Odontesthes) and cholgas (ribbed mussels), to promote the care of the sea through local consumption.
Catalina Cendoya, director of anti-salmon farming group the Global Salmon Farming Resistance (GSFR), claimed that everywhere around the world where the salmon industry operates, destruction follows.
“The community of Tierra del Fuego knows this, and they are not willing to sacrifice their local economies,” claimed Cendoya.
The GSFR lists 73 members on its website. These include notorious anti-salmon farming campaigners such as Alexandra Morton (Canada), and Booker Prize-winning fiction author Richard Flanagan (Tasmania), along with organisations such as Oceana (Chile), Green Warriors of Norway, and vegan group Viva! (UK).
'Environmental regression'
After this week's law change, Matías Arrigazzi, a biodiversity specialist at Greenpeace, told Notcias Ambientales (Environmental News) website: “What once set a historical precedent in environmental matters for Argentina, today opens a new chapter of environmental regression.”
“Evidence has shown that in areas where salmonids are not native and there are ecosystems of high value and fragility like the Argentine Sea, there are serious environmental impacts that cannot be avoided.”
Agustín Coto has previously said that his move to scrap the salmon farming ban sought to drive “the economic development of Tierra del Fuego and the country so that no transnational hippy NGO … tells us how or what to live on”.
