Chefs cook up protest against reversal of salmon ban
Economic realities mean a ban on net pens in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, may soon be repealed
A group of local chefs and artisinal fishers have staged a protest against a possible repeal of a law banning marine and freshwater salmon farming in Tierra del Fuego in the south of Argentina.
The local government in Tierra del Fuego passed the law in 2021, but regional legislator Agustín Coto has announced his intention 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 Coto’s proposed law change would allow the Tierra del Fuego state government to employ environmental assessments to establish areas suitable for aquaculture but also stresses 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 – would be maintained.
Tierra del Fuego Governor Gustavo Melella supports the proposed law change, and the chefs and fishers who oppose salmon farming fear that the ban may be lifted imminently.
Protest and promotion
Their waterside protest at Ushuaia Aeroclub on Saturday 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 has 73 members. These include notorious anti-salmon farming campaigners such as Alexandra Morton (Canada), Don Staniford (Scotland), 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).
Agustín Coto said previously said that his move to scrap the salmon farming ban seeks 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”.
