2025-08-12

POROS – The Greek government withdraws controversial fish farms plan on Poros island after years of community campaigning and several investigations. 

In a significant move, the Greek government has scrapped its long-held plan to set up intensive sea bass and sea bream farms along Poros island’s coastline in the Saronic Gulf. This controversial proposal had been in the works since 2011 and faced strong opposition from the local community, worried about its environmental impact.

On 9 August 2025, the ΚΕΣΥΠΟΘΑ committee unanimously rejected the creation of a POAY (designated aquaculture zone) around Poros.

The Poros plan would have seen a quarter of the island’s coastline covered with fish farms — something that went against the wishes of the entire island community. The government’s withdrawal is a big win for Poros and could be the first step towards rethinking intensive fish farming across Greece, which has been repeatedly linked to pollution and damage to natural resources.

  • The issue of the unsustainability of sea bass and sea bream farming in Greece was first raised by journalists in the cross-border investigation Invisible Factory Farms: The Rise of Aquaculture In "Green” Europe in 2020 by Francesco De Augustinis, Rob Edwards, Jamie Mann, and Richard Baynes.
  • In the following years the team worked on several other projects on fish farming, with more support from Journalismfund Europe (for example, on Antarctic krill). 
  • These findings were brought together in Until the End of the World documentary.
  • The investigations and the documentary have been used by communities in Greece, in Poros and elsewhere, as a basis for their campaign against the development of intensive fish farming.

The decision comes after more than a decade of campaigning by Poros residents, a campaign that gained real strength thanks to a series of investigations supported by Journalismfund Europe in the framework of the European Cross-Border and Earth investigations grant programmes.

This shows that real change often takes time — years of hard work, persistence, and the power of investigative journalism to support communities in their fight for a better future.

Image (c) Francesco de Augustinis

**

More context: 

 

 

fish farm on Poros