By: Judit Alonso
(Read news in DW)
Thousands of tons of salmon were found dead due to lack of oxygen in the Comau fjord and the Jacaf and Puyuhuapi channels in the Chilean regions of Los Lagos and Aysén a few weeks ago after an episode of harmful algal blooms. This event, described as an "environmental catastrophe", mobilized more than 60 Chilean environmental organizations that demanded the exit of the salmon industry from Patagonia's lakes, fjords and canals.
According to a joint communiqué, these are "widely known events of environmental damage over decades". For this reason, they demanded that the Chilean government not grant new concessions to this industry, that current concessions not be extended, and that the number of fish farmed in these concessions not be allowed to increase.
"Algae blooms have been normal in Chile, however lately they have been happening with greater recurrence," Liesbeth van der Meer, director of Oceana Chile, alerted DW, pointing to climate change as one of the causes.
"A dry summer with little precipitation, the result of that is that the surface water, which is normally a freshwater layer, with low salinity, becomes more saline and that creates the conditions for harmful algae to grow," Vreni Haüsserman, a researcher at San Sebastian University in Patagonia, explained to DW. "In addition, solar radiation increased by times with few clouds and the warming of surface water also increases algae growth," she added.
However, Chilean environmental organizations blame the salmon companies themselves for the environmental catastrophe. "The effects of climate change can be even more devastating if they occur in ecosystems that are diseased. That is the case of what is happening in the fjords and canals of southern Chile where the salmon industry has installed itself," Mauricio Ceballos, spokesman for the Oceans campaign at Greenpeace Chile, told DW.
The influence of human action
This is a "high impact" industry, considered Haüsserman, who, like the other experts consulted by DW, agrees that a decisive factor for these events to occur is the existence of a large amount of nutrients in the ecosystem. "A lot of nutrients, chemicals and antibiotics are being added to the fjord and that obviously has effects," stressed the German researcher based in the South American country.
"The enormous amount of organic matter that is contributed to the water column becomes food for the proliferation of harmful algal blooms," Ceballos explained.
"This is what the algae need to reproduce and take oxygen away from the fish. The other fish generally manage to escape the algae to areas with more oxygen, but the salmon, as they are trapped in the cage, die," added the director of Oceana Chile.
For this reason, environmental organizations warn of the damage that economic activity generates to the environment. "It must be taken into account that these are closed marine spaces, with a very slow circulation of currents, which means that when a salmon cage modifies the natural conditions of the seabed, it takes a long time for the deterioration to be reversed," said Ceballos.
An avoidable catastrophe?
"This is the second most bloom we have had on record since the days of salmon farming," Van der Meer stressed. In the case of the Comau Fjord, however, the risk was foretold. "Two years ago the first cells of this brown tide that happened now were discovered, but this is the first time there has been an algal bloom. It has not been observed before," Haüsserman said.
The consequences were greater due to the lack of a rapid response. "Neither the state nor the industry itself has the capacity to react to the emergency," says Maximiliano Bello, executive advisor for Ocean Public Policy at Mission Blue.
"The company had 96 hours to remove all its mortality, which ended up happening two weeks after the crisis began," criticized the spokesperson for the Oceans campaign at Greenpeace Chile, pointing to weak environmental legislation. "It has always lagged behind the major health or environmental disasters produced by the industry itself, with reactive legislation that is not even enforced," he added.
For Bello, this is because "salmon farming has been able, in these more than twenty years, to generate legislation completely in line with its needs". "The regulations in Chile have acted for years through lobbying with regulations that do not allow the environment to be protected," he criticized.
For this reason Ceballos lamented the lack of "effective control by public agencies" and denounced that "the vast majority of infractions and environmental disasters committed by the industry end up without sanctions or with derisory fines".
Van der Meer also criticized the "lack of regulation and transparency" in the sector, in which certain advances are proposed. "A law is being processed in Congress where the salmon that escape from the cage will have a cost for the industry and the transparency of the use of chemicals by the industry will be mandatory," he said, advocating that the industry should also regulate the total amount of fish that can be raised.