An open-net salmon farm on the Chilean side of the Beagle Channel. Photograph: Dani Casado
As we increase our awareness of the many choices we have when consuming fish (among other things), here is more food for thought:
Puerto Almanza, on the Beagle Channel in Argentinian Tierra del Fuego, is one of the world’s most southerly settlements and best known for the local seafood, especially Patagonian king crabs.
Photograph: Visit ArgentinaWhile the ecosystem is thriving off the coast of Argentina, the proliferation of salmon farms in Chile’s waters is threatening marine life, say critics
A rocky path, strewn with thick tree roots, leads from a dirt road down to a small green hut overlooking the choppy waters of the Beagle Channel, a strait between Chile and Argentina. The shack is home to Diane Mendez and her family but doubles as Alama Yagan, one of nine restaurants in the fishing village of Puerto Almanza.
The village, in Argentinian Tierra del Fuego, has become a foodie haven, and the final stop on the king crab route, a trail that starts in the provincial capital Ushuaia, 45 miles to the east. But things could have been different.
In 2021, the provincial government voted to ban intensive salmon farming in Argentinian waters, after campaigners successfully argued that it would wreak environmental havoc, close down local fishing fleets and threaten the established nature-tourism sector, which employs 16,500 people.
“Everything in the sea has benefited from the ban on industrial salmon farming,” says Mendez. “The whole ecosystem was saved, from the crabs to the seaweed; they all depend on a healthy Beagle Channel.”
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