The CONICET biologist, Guillermo Folguera, warned that enabling salmon farming would imply contamination and irreversible damage to marine ecosystems.
The biologist from CONICET and researcher, Guillermo Folguera, stated that if the law prohibiting salmon farms is repealed, it will destroy several ecosystems in the province of Tierra del Fuego and cause irreparable losses in nature.
Noticias Ambientales confirmed this fact, which mainly refers to the Provincial Law 1355, which prohibits salmon farming.
Provincial legislators seek to repeal the law that prohibits the activity throughout the territory of Tierra del Fuego, despite the strong rejection from the community and, above all, due to the environmental impact that this practice has.
Researcher Folguera participated in the program Un Domingo Perfecto, hosted by Carolina Fernández on Radio Splendid, and stated that it is not specifically about salmon production, but about the ways in which large salmon industries carry out these practices. “We are not just in a debate of protecting versus producing, but we need to discuss the ways we produce”, he argued.
He also explained how the production model is implemented in producing countries and how, by maintaining this process over time, it generates pollution, damage to ecosystems, and precarious conditions for the fish, which are exposed to diseases.
“The damages of megafactories in salmon production worldwide are clearly identified and classified. Large tubes are used that are submerged in the sea, where each of these tubes contains 100,000 salmon specimens,” he assured.
He also added: “Many of these companies have ten tubes in the sea, so we are talking about more than a million crowded fish”. With catastrophic environmental consequences, as these fish excrete fecal matter inside the containers, which causes them to have a deficient immune system and makes them prone to contracting diseases.
“When they get sick, producers do nothing but throw fungicides, antibiotics, and antivirals into the ocean. The entire environment receives the excrement and chemicals, meaning that the rest of the marine animals are indirect victims of these practices”, he explained.
Folguera also highlighted that Argentina takes the Chilean model as a reference, which has an unfavorable history and reflects the problems it causes.
“We have the Chilean model very close, which shows how the seabed rots and dies, and soon these productions have to relocate. Literally, in Chile, they kept moving further south because the salmon start to get sick and die, destroying the entire marine ecosystem“, he stated.
Finally, Folguera made it clear that if the repeal of the law is approved, it would be endorsing the death of the sea. “It’s shocking that this is approved in Tierra del Fuego. They will enable the poisoning and intoxication of the sea”, he concluded.
