Seafood “Made in Galicia” has jumped today The headlines of The Guardianbut for a reason that will hardly glad any of the workers who are dedicated to slaughter on their coasts to collect berobe, clam or mussel. In a public act and with official data In hand, Platform in Defense Da Ría de Aruous (Pdra), brotherhoods and groups of mussel producers have just launched a ‘sos’ in the face of the collapse of the amount of seafood they extract from the estuary.
Their data reflects a clear billing fall, but also something else: in its coastal strip today much clam, shoes and mussels that years ago.
What happened? That in the Ría de Aruous, The most extensive from Galicia and usually generous In mollusks and crustaceans, a full -fledged ‘SOS’ has just launched. A few days ago the Platform in Defense Da Ría (PDRA), Brotherhoods and professionals in the musical sector organized a press conference To share a series of data that reflect to what extent the catches have lowered on their coasts.
They are not the first to raise their voice. The sector has already Some time handling data worrying At the regional level. Two months ago Vigo lighthouse He informed that the sector has had to deal with the worst mussel harvest of the decade, with a 23% drop in 2023; and in October The Galician mail He spoke that in the Galician markets a 46% less octopus had been auctioned, attending to their weight.
DATA FOR REFLECTION. The data broken down by the brotherhoods and PDRA are strong enough to have called attention of the British press. And rightly. Beyond the prick of sales, which in 2024 stayed in 69 million In the rains of the estuary, far from the average of 85.2 million recorded the previous five years, the seafood collection balances are alarming.
In 2024 the production of berobe descended to minimums, with a 93.7% drop with respect to the average of the 2019-2023 five-year period. In net terms, he stayed in just 19 tons. And things were not much better in the captures of fine and slug clam. If compared to the same period, more than 85%were reduced. In general, the production of bivalve fell 44.7% With respect to the 2019-2023 period.
“Progressive deterioration”. For the pdra the reading that these figures leave is clear: they speak of a gradual degradation of the area, a reality of which they have been warning. ” “(The estuary) is suffering a progressive deterioration that is reflected year after year, in the loss of tons of bivalves, millions of euros, of Permex and with the seafood banks without recovery capacity”, They warn.
World power. What happens on the Galician coast arouses interest beyond the autonomous community or Spain because, such as remember The Guardian and claims the own Xuntaits sector plays a key role internationally.
“Galicia is the first world power in cultivation and marketing of mussels and is placed second after China in terms of production and extraction of this bivalvo,” they point out from the regional executive before recoding that by their coast they are distributed 3,337 batsmost in the Aruous estuary. Of them usually starts around 40% of the European production of the Bivalvo.
A campaign to forget. The balance for those responsible for managing the bats is not precisely flattering either. Waiting for last year’s final data, 2023 left a balance of 178,065 tons of mussels sold for just under 120 million euros, the lowest figure in the last quarter of the century, Remember eldiario.esand far from the good results harvested in 2022. Xunta herself recognizes that it is normal for the bats to be distributed by Galicia every year more than 250,000 tons.
And what is the reason? Producers They speak of the contamination generated by the wastewater treatment stations (WWTP) and spills of the factories, a diagnosis in which Marta Martín-Borregón seems to coincide, by Greenpeace Spain, in statements a The Guardian. “The main cause is the contamination from the waste expressed to the estuary, coming from agriculture and factories, such as canvas.”
“The waters of the estuar are normally cold and the currents contribute many nutrients. With the warm -up of the seafood there are no assembly in warm waters.” That scenario, Martín-Boregón emphasizesit goes especially to the mussels and threatens the “collapse” of the sector dedicated to the marshal. When analyzing the fall in production of bats They are usually pointed out the lack of seed and the high temperature.
“We need to help us”. The phrase It is on this occasion of María del Carmen Besada Meis, responsible for the Fishermen’s Brotherhood of San Martiño, in the Ría de Arousa, and that these days he shared his frustration with the British press. In his opinion one of the keys to the situation with which they have to deal with is Climate change And the torrential rains of recent years, but cries out: “What we would like is for someone to come and do adequate investigation.”
“We are shellfish, we do not know what the solution is, so we need scientists to help us,” emphasize. Hence, Pdra, Brotherhoods and Mussel producers demand the Xunta de Galicia that intervene “urgently” in the sanitation and regeneration of the Ría de Arousa. Those affected demand that the problem addresses “Serious” And they show their rejection of two projects that, according to their critics, would affect the regional ecosystem: the Altri plant projected in Palas de Rei and the Tour and pine mine.
Images | Jose Luis Cernadas Iglesias (Flickr), Juantiagues (Flickr) and Manuel MV (Flickr)
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