Left Adrift: Climate Change Threatens Shellfish Farmers in Southern Europe

 In Galicia, Spain, many women shellfish pickers have been unable to work this year because of the mass mortality of shellfish, while mussel producers are also reporting smaller harvests.

In Taranto, Italy, mussel farming is threatened by both climate change and contamination from Europe’s biggest steel factory. With the factory's future currently being debated, the city is torn between investment in the environment and big industry.  

While the €6 billion European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund is supposed to “guarantee the availability of food supplies, the competitiveness of the maritime economy and the livelihood of coastal communities”, many artisanal producers express frustration that governments are acting too late or prioritising bigger industrial interests.

This cross-border project explores how small-scale shellfish producers in several regions of Spain and Italy are coping — including abandoning the trade altogether or resorting to illegal harvesting — and investigates where the money which is supposed to be helping them is actually ending up.