Left Adrift: Climate Change Threatens Shellfish Farmers in Southern Europe

In Galicia, Spain, many women shellfish pickers have been unable to work this year: too most shellfish died in the sea. Mussel producers have also reported smaller harvests.

In Taranto, Italy, mussel farming is also threatened by both climate change and contamination from Europe’s largest steel factory. The factory's future is 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 have been coping so far. Some of them have abandoned the trade altogether or resorted to illegal harvesting. The journalists analysed where the money which is supposed to be helping them is actually ending up. 

Photo: A shellfish picker in Cambados, Galicia, Spain (c) Naomi Mihara