Aquaculture engineer pens open letter to organisers of Argentina’s anti-salmon farming campaign

A campaign is being led by the country’s renowned chefs who do not want salmon farms in the Beagle Channel. “It seems very dangerous to me,” says aquaculture engineer.

Lucas Maglio, an Argentinean aquaculture engineer, has penned a letter on Twitter responding to the popular #NoALaSalmonicultura campaign.

Argentina’s culinary elite
His arguments were written in a letter addressed to Narda Lepes, one of the leaders of this campaign, along with Fernando Trocca, Germán Martitegui and Mauro Colagreco, among other members of Argentina’s culinary elite.

Argentina’s fisheries and aquaculture undersecretary plans to develop salmon aquaculture in the Beagle Channel, a strait in the country’s southern Tierra del Fuego province, in the next three to four years.

Dedicated
Lepes started throwing her weight behind the campaign at the end of January and the hashtag #NoALaSalmonicultura (No to salmon farming) has been shared thousands of times.

But Maglio said that he had been working in Chile for 10 years within the industry adding that “I am dedicated to salmon farming.”

“Among other things, I worked at Marine Harvest, and I eat together with my family salmon and trout every week, I try and dream for years to develop this activity in my country.”

Appeal
In the letter, he appeals to more research but also the potential benefits to salmon farming. But worries about misinformation.

“It scares me a lot, it worries me, it saddens me, this about these “campaigns”, I do not say all obviously, but generate a campaign based on unfounded comments, from a questionable point of view, and to form from it automatically a “Campaign” with a remarkable diffusion, with symbols, with flags of war, in short, it seems very dangerous to me. Not only by the one who promotes it but also by the followers who join without analysing much information. To be ordained, I want to first respond to each of the postulates I see on Instagram, citing reliable sources, something I suggest respectfully you do please, then I invite you to another campaign.”

“The case of the Beagle requires many more studies, a priori it may be a place to empower people who they truly make home there, to the crab collectors, for example, to help them improve their activity to take care of the resource and to convert them, because no, into small-scale sea producers. But undoubtedly the greatest potential for farming is in the exposed / open sea, and in an integrated manner with several marine species, it is neither more nor less the only escape route we have to survive as a species. And why do not you know which country has the greatest potential in the world to develop this? Argentina,” said Lucas to the Argentine cook.

The letter in full is available via this link.

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