Recent revelations or indeed admissions by fish farm owners that slicks of foul-smelling toxic slime polluting large stretches of Malta’s once clear waters are in fact emanating from fish farming operations, comes as no surprise to the many vociferous critics of these seemingly unregulated operations in Malta.
What should be surprising to all Maltese nationals as stakeholders in this precious natural resource, a vital element in a tourist-based economy, is that the revelations or admissions were finally made by the owners/operators and did not come from the enforcement agency which is charged by its own government to be the watchdog of the environment in Malta.
That responsibility clearly lies with the Ministry for Environment and Climate Change under the leadership of a minister with no action, Josè Herrera.
There were reports after reports of plumes of slime and other heavy contaminants from fish farms over a significant period of time and absolutely nothing was heard from the minister. The Times of Malta alone reported on incidents of heavy pollution from fish farms in 2014, 2015 and several times already in 2016.
Fish farming is an intensive eco invasive operation which inflicts significant, visible and considerable harm on the once pristine waters around Malta
In a report published by this newspaper in 2014, the ministry apparently was unable to provide the exact coordinates for locating operating fish farms. The ministry had no idea of where the operations it was charged to regulate were precisely located. Mind-boggling even for Malta where enforcement is considered to be a dirty word.
In another report published in July this year it was revealed that one particular farming operation had expanded four times its regulated approved size, with no corresponding action from the ministry. There was no rebuttal or response to such a serious allegation from the minister.
With enforcement levels in this sector at a record new low and zero operational policing, the industry has gone feral amid widespread and increasingly serious abuses of our marine environment at will and without restraint.
The public must wonder why the minister is protecting these big money vested interests despite the obvious breaches of regulatory controls and it is up to the public to reach their own conclusions.
This minister has completely abandoned his post and is now minister without purpose. The Prime Minister should instantly dismiss him in the national interest and indeed in the interests of his own government.
Subsequent to the latest pollution episode, the minister eventually responded with some motherhood sweeping statement about the environment while singing the praises of the importance of the fish farming industry in Malta. He announced some half-hearted investigation which no doubt will lead to more cover-up of these serious transgressions with absolutely no resulting action.
These are the simple unarguable facts which even a non-functioning minister might be capable of grasping. Malta is a highly successful tourist-based economy. It is widely accepted with good anecdotal evidence that the tourist industry can be very fickle and easily affected by environmental and security issues.
Fish farming is an intensive eco invasive operation which inflicts significant, visible and considerable harm on the once pristine waters around Malta. These operations, most particularly inside protective bays, are incompatible with an economy based on tourism attracted by among other things our attractive waters.
That is incontestable. So contrary to the minister’s utterings, fish farming generally is a medium- to long-term threat to Malta’s mainstay of the economy and not just an economic supplement which must be defended at all times regardless of the serious risks it represents.
Scientific studies have likened fish farming operations to intensive pig or poultry farming, literally responsible for thousands of tons of polluting by-product concoctions loaded with antibiotic steroids and other mind-numbing nasties.
Heavy accumulations and combinations of uneaten feed laced with chemicals and a massive efflux of effluent from heavy concentrations of fish penned in the same restricted area is wreaking havoc on our marine ecology, our marine life and seabed flora.
While fish farming is not a massive employer, it does provide some employment in Malta but still cannot be even remotely compared to the hospitality sector which obviously depends a great deal on Malta’s natural and reasonably unpolluted marine assets now becoming increasingly threatened and facing rising levels of different pressures.
Aquaculture in Malta is generally referenced under the dual headings of tuna farming and farming of other smaller species. According to the General Review of Bluefin Tuna farming in the Mediterranean, Malta is particularly identified as being the most strategic location of all of the tuna farming operations in the Mediterranean in terms of the migratory path of the bluefin tuna.
It can therefore be reasonably argued that the bluefin purse seine tuna operation has directly impacted on what used to be a strong and thriving local traditional tuna fishing community resulting in few, if any traditional tuna fishermen left, given the dwindling nature of the species and the now capital intensive state of the industry.
As wild stocks of Atlantic bluefin tuna continue to decline and now are in the cusp of collapsing beyond recovery, an entire species is at risk of extinction from over-exploitation.
These risks are recognised and monitored by various international environmental bodies like ICCAT WWF (Tuna) CCSBT and others, but despite the fact the industry is providentially monitored by authorities other than those in Malta, it seems the true to form Maltese operators are still finding ways of rorting the system in the absence of complete lack of interest or worse by Maltese regulators.
In answer to published claims that Malta has since 2002 declared two non-existent tuna farms (presumably with an eye for future additional permitted catch quotas) among its registered eight ranches, Fisheries director Anthony Grupetta actually provided incorrect or misleading responses to all of the material points made in that report by Raphael Vassallo.
That response by the director with corrective editorial comment was also published but still no comment or action by the minister. That’s the extent of enforcement in Malta. Less than zero.
Anthony Trevisan is a businessman who has spent much of his childhood at Xemxija Bay with a passionate interest in environmental issues in Malta.