Hörð barátta stendur nú yfir á Falklandseyjum gegn því að settar verði í hafið umhverfis eyjarnar sjókvíar með um fimmtán milljón eldislöxum. Ástæðan eru augljós skaðleg áhrif á fjölbreytt dýralíf, fiska, fugla og sjávarspendýr eldinu sem losar allt skólp óhreinsað i sjóinn.
Stuðningsfólk sjókvíaeldisins segja að þau 30.000 tonn af eldislaxi sem á að ala muni skapa 133 störf.
Sá fjöldi sýnir þó fyrst og fremst hversu gríðarlegur fórnarkostnaðurinn er að baki hverju starfi. Mengunin frá 30.000 tonna sjókvíaeldi er er á við klóakrennsli frá 480.000 mann borg og inniheldur fiskaskít, fóðurleifar, örplast, þungmálma, lyf og eiturefni. Íbúar Falklandseyja eru 3.500 talsins.
Andstæðingar þessara áætlana vilja að efnt verði til atkvæðagreiðslu meðal íbúa um hvort eigi að stöðva þær.
Í fyrra voru um 55.000 tonn af eldislaxi í sjókvíum við Ísland. Ársverk í þessum iðnaði voru um 500, sem er 0,2 prósent af íslenskum vinnumarkaði, og óhreinsað klóakrennsli úr sjókvíunum í firðina fyrir austan og vestan var á við 880.000 manns, eða rúmlega tvöfaldan íbúafjölda Íslands.
Í umfjöllun The Guardian segir m.a.
[P]lans to make the Falkland Islands, one of the most remote and furthest-flung British overseas territories, a new frontier for salmon farming has split the 3,500-strong population. Now, people opposed to salmon farming are calling for a referendum because they have lost confidence in a consultation process they claim is biased towards the industry.
Unity Marine, a joint venture between Fortuna, a local fishing company, and Danish firm F-land ApS, want to farm 50,000 tonnes of salmon annually in 16 locations, in what would be the largest industrial inshore development in the archipelago’s history.
Farming 30,000 tonnes annually could add £35m a year to the territory’s economy, equivalent to 11% of GDP, and provide 133 jobs, according to an assessment commissioned by the Falklands Islands government.
Salmon Free Falklands (SFF), set up by local people to oppose the proposal, said that a referendum will allow residents to decide once and for all, without fear of further challenge.
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The government has made clear its reports are at present looking at a number of different scenarios for the proposed farms before it commissions full environmental impact assessments.
Louise Cherrie, a former member of the environmental protection authority in Tasmania, Australia, who now runs a consultancy and is providing advice to SFF, claimed the reports, one of which determined the estimated value of the proposal, were “bordering on worthless”.
“The carrying capacity has not yet been determined by a rigorous scientific process,” said Cherrie. This refers to how many farmed salmon the area can support. “The regulation and impacts have not yet been costed, so it is not a cost-benefit analysis that the Falklands Islanders can make an informed choice on,” she added.
Missing from the environmental report, for instance, is how any mass mortalities of fish, common in the salmon industry elsewhere, would be disposed of on the remote islands, she said.
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A representative of the Falkland Islands government said that it was “neither advocating for nor opposing salmon farming”.
The reports it had commissioned were “to inform public discussion by examining possible outcomes and impacts under different assumptions, rather than to provide final approvals for any specific project”, the spokesperson said.
The government rejected suggestions that the environmental impacts of salmon farming had not been clearly presented. The carrying capacity report, it said, had been commissioned “purely for demonstrating how the modelling process would be applied to a potential project”, and was not a determination of the carrying capacity of the Falklands. A third report, on socioeconomic impacts, did not quantify future regulatory costs, it said, because they “cannot be accurately estimated” at this stage.