Climate change?—Over the past two years rainfall has been well above the average in Western Europe—Record-breaking in Spain! Spanish fishers claim a “catastrophic” collapse in shellfish, with some stocks falling by as much as 90%—Fishermen claim pollution, scientists climate change!

Porto De Vigo Galicia, credit Wikipedia.

Spanish fishers in Galicia are reporting a “catastrophic” collapse in shellfish numbers, with some stocks falling by as much as 90% in the space of a few years. Galicia is Europe’s principal shellfish source and, after China, the world’s biggest producer of mussels, which are farmed in the estuaries. But figures published by a fishing website this month reveal an alarming decline in cockles and clams, which are collected by hand at low tide, as well as mussels, which are farmed on ropes strung from wooden rafts known as bateas. In 2023 the crop of cockles fell by 80% compared with the previous year, while some varieties of clams fell by 78%.

Mussel production last year was the lowest in a quarter of a century, falling from 250,000 tonnes in 2021 to 178,000 last year. María del Carmen Besada Meis, who heads the San Martiño fishers association in the Ría de Arousa, one of the principal sources of shellfish in the region, believes that climate change is the culprit, thanks in part to the recent torrential rains that have reduced the salinity of the rías. Over the past two years rainfall has been well above the average.“But we don’t have enough concrete evidence and what we’d like is for someone to come and do some proper research so that we know what’s behind this and what we can do about it,” she says.“We’re marisqueros (shell fishers) and we don’t know what the solution is, which is why need scientists to help us with this,” says Besada Meis. “The government needs to put some money on the table for this research.”But the other factor behind the collapse in stocks is pollution, according to Marta Martín-Borregón, responsible for oceans at Greenpeace, Spain, who describes the latest figures as “catastrophic”.

The biggest cause is pollution from waste discharged into the estuary, from agriculture and from factories, such as the fish canneries,” she says. There are also plans to reopen the nearby Touro-Pino copper mine, which will potentially create more waste, while there is widespread opposition to a proposal to build a huge cellulose plant in the region which, according to Greenpeace, would consume 46,000 cubic metres of water a day, the equivalent of the entire surrounding province of Lugo.

The Galician water company says that waste is dumped into the sea more than 2,000 times a year, of which 10% exceeds legal toxicity limits. While Martín-Borregón says there is an urgent need to clean up the rías, she agrees that the key factor is climate change.“The waters of the rías are normally cold and the currents bring a lot of nutrients. With warming seas there are species of shellfish that can’t thrive in warm water,” she says. “This is especially the case with mussels and as the temperatures rise the shellfish industry is moving closer towards collapse.”Another factor that reduces salinity, in addition to heavy rains, is when the dams are opened at low tide, flooding the rías with fresh water, and causing massive mortality among bivalves, particularly cockles. The warmer waters also attract invasive species, notably the blue crab, native to the western Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, which is a voracious consumer of local species such as spider crabs and velvet crabs, both of which have a high market value. The only chink of light is that oyster production has increased slightly, but otherwise, the outlook is grim.“We can’t make a living like this,” says Besada Meis. “We carry on working but we’re living on social security.

Pollution or Climate Change—'Nature is disappearing!

”Nature is disappearing: The average size of wildlife populations has fallen by a staggering 73% The Living Planet Report 2024 highlights the average change in observed population sizes of 5,495 vertebrate species. It shows a decline of 73% between 1970 and 2020. WWF Report here Can you imagine the worldwide panic if 73% of humans had disappeared since 1970? just a couple of weeks after the WWF report, another study claimed the world's trees were sliding towards extinction. Scientists assessing dangers posed to the world’s trees revealed that more than a "third of tree species are facing extinction" (a third of all species!!!) in the wild. The number of threatened trees now outweighs all threatened birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians put together. This is according to the latest update to the official extinction red list. The news was released in Cali, Colombia, where world leaders met at the UN biodiversity summit, COP 16, to assess progress on a landmark rescue plan for nature. Trees are vital for life, (DUH!) helping to clean the air and soak up carbon emissions, as well as providing homes for thousands of birds, insects and mammals (and human beings). Full Story

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