Dec. 6, 2024
Abandoned Fish Farms in Greece: Ghost Farm Clean Up by Healthy Seas
Abandoned fish farms in Greece are plaguing the coastline with marine debris; however, Healthy Seas is working to clean up some of the sites and raise awareness for support to tell the Greek government that fish farm owners should be responsible for...
Abandoned fish farms in Greece are plaguing the coastline with marine debris; however, Healthy Seas is working to clean up some of the sites and raise awareness for support to tell the Greek government that fish farm owners should be responsible for cleaning up their sites once the business is done operating.
In this episode of the "How to Protect the Ocean" podcast, host Andrew Lewin discusses the pressing issue of ghost farms—abandoned fish farms that are polluting oceans, particularly in Greece. The episode highlights the work of the organization Healthy Seas, which is actively involved in cleaning up these ghost farms.
Key Points:
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Definition of Ghost Farms: Ghost farms are abandoned fish farms that were once operational but have been left to deteriorate, leading to significant environmental pollution. Unlike ghost nets, which can be found randomly in the ocean, ghost farms are known sites with identifiable owners.
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Extent of the Problem: There are over 150 ghost farm sites identified in Greece, with one cleanup in 2024 removing over 40 tons of marine debris, including plastics and fishing nets. The cleanup costs range from 100,000 to 200,000 euros, depending on the site's location and accessibility.
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Healthy Seas' Approach: Healthy Seas, led by Veronica Mikos, began addressing this issue after encountering a local environmentalist while on a project in Greece. They have since cleaned up two ghost farms and are advocating for better policies and enforcement to prevent future abandonment.
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Challenges in Cleanup: The cleanups are labor-intensive and require specialized equipment. Many of the materials, such as polystyrene, degrade and pose risks to marine life, as fish may mistake them for food.
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Policy and Enforcement Issues: Although laws exist regarding environmental protection and aquaculture, enforcement is lacking. Veronica suggests that fish farming companies should be required to deposit funds to cover cleanup costs, ensuring accountability.
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Community Involvement and Awareness: Healthy Seas emphasizes the importance of raising awareness about ghost farms and involving local communities in discussions about aquaculture practices. They aim to educate future aquaculture professionals about the environmental responsibilities associated with fish farming.
The episode concludes with a call to action for better policies and community engagement to ensure that abandoned fish farms are cleaned up and that the aquaculture industry operates sustainably.
Healthy Seas Podcast: https://www.speakupforblue.com/show/speak-up-for-the-ocean-blue/show-199/
YouTube Video from Healthy Seas: https://youtu.be/yu56xH8MQxg?si=--VsZQIK7fk3yhlO
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Transcript
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As a critical source of food, jobs, and environmental solutions, aquaculture
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plays a vital role in feeding the world sustainably. But with great potential
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comes great responsibility. In today's episode, we'll address one of the major
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challenges that threatens its sustainability. We'll uncover the
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hidden issue of ghost farms, abandoned fish farms polluting our
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oceans, and organizations like Healthy Seas are working to clean up
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over 150 affected sites. Stay tuned
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as we discuss how policies and enforcement should improve to
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ensure that the aquaculture industry can thrive while protecting our
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planet and maximize its potential for future generations.
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Let's start the show. Hey
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everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast I'm
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your host Andrew Lewin and this is a podcast where you find out what's happening with
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the ocean how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for
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a better ocean by taking action. If you're new to this podcast this
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is a podcast like I said we find out everything about the ocean if you want to find out
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more information you can go to speakupforblue.com our website Check
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out all the podcast episodes, all the YouTube shows, everything
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that we have. We have other podcasts up there like Beyond Jaws and Aquadocs and
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Fancy Scientist. We have a lot of episodes out there, a lot of content for
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you to find out more about the ocean, more about wildlife, and get
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yourself educated and made more aware of how you can protect the
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planet. You can also get our newsletter direct to your inbox
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Monday to Fridays at 8 a.m. just go to speakupforblue.com forward
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slash newsletter to sign up. That's speakupforblue.com forward
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slash newsletter to sign up. Now, let's talk about
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the episode. We're gonna be talking about ghost farms. About six months ago, I
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interviewed the executive director of Healthy Seas, Veronica Mikos,
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who was on the podcast to talk about a recent ghost
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farm that they helped clean up. They created a trailer for
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it, they created a YouTube video for it, and it was
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something that inspired me to do another episode on it. I did
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a full interview, and you can check out the audio podcast on
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our podcast back, but I'll link to it in the show notes and in the description. But
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I wanted to cut up the interview a little bit and just show some of the stuff that
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they've been doing. The organization was very nice and they lent me and
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allowed me to show some of the stuff you've already seen. Some
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of the footage that they took showing how they cleaned up and what they needed
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to clean up these sites. This is one of those episodes that
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I've been wanting to do for a long time. I wanted to bring you, so I'm super
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excited to be doing this. The first thing you need to know is that this episode is gonna be
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different than my normal structure of the
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podcast. I'm gonna be cutting in and out of an interview and some of the interviews
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that they took. throughout the process of cleaning up
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a ghost farm near the island of Ithaca, as well
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as some interviews they did and some other footage they've done in the past. At
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the time of the interview that I did, they had cleaned up two ghost
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farms, but they've done more since then. We'll be
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sharing updates in the future about their progress. But the key
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thing that you need to know is that ghost farms are a problem, especially
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in Greece. There have been 150 sites identified that
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need to be cleaned up. One of the sites that they cleaned up in
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2024 had over 40 tons of plastic cleaned up.
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Marine debris, all sorts, including fishnets, including
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pipes, including the plastics and polystyrene that
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are used to float the pipes so that they stay at the surface of
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the area. There was so much to clean
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up that these cleanups cost a ton
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of money. Each of these cleanups are different in terms of how much the
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cost is going to be. Some of the costs that they've had is basically ranging from
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100 to 200,000 euros. Think about that. 100 to 200,000 euros. just
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to clean up site and they all differ because of where they're situated
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there are some places where the fish farms are located down like
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a valley into the ocean like into a bay but they have to bring
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these big machines down a side of a hill so you
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need to have the right equipment to do that It's hard to access
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the actual site just from the people, the people power that it
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takes. Sometimes the nets are buried on the ground, like underneath the
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ground. There's just little pieces that they're trying to pull off just
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to get access to the nets that are there that could pose problems
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for years and years to come. Imagine
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that effect in an area over
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and over and over again, 150 times. This
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is the problem that's identified. And
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it's really interesting in how this all came about.
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But the first thing I want to do, I want to introduce you to Veronika Mikos.
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I'm Veronika from Healthy Seas, director of the
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foundation. And already since 11 years,
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we've been focusing on plastic pollutions, more
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Healthy Seas started off as an organization
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that cleans up marine debris. There are so many different types of marine
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debris that you can clean up and the way Healthy Seas is built, it's
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built based on divers. Volunteers that go in and
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actually clean up marine debris, whether it's been like a
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scuba diver that goes down and is just doing a pleasure dive and
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just cleans up marine debris as they see it. I've seen it
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firsthand. I've seen divers like take out fishing nets, like
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cut out fishing nets from reefs and certain things like that. This is like
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more dedicated. They identify areas where there's a lots of marine debris
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and they go for it. So that's how the organization was built.
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Now, how did they come across ghost farms? Because they didn't know about
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ghost farms. Not many people knew about ghost farms. How did they come
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So we've been in Greece in
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2020, setting up a project in COVID times, which was
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not easy at all. And we cleaned
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up one of the biggest submarines of the
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Second World War from ghost nets. And that was in
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the Ionian Islands in Greece, in Cephalonia. And
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the neighboring island, Ithaca, we just really came over for
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two days of holiday to recover from all that big project.
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And then we met a local environmentalist, a
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dive center owner there, who was just literally
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telling us, I've seen you guys, what you are doing. It was
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in the news. Congratulations. If you want to clean
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up something really big, These were his words. If you
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want to clean up something really big, we got a fish farm here.
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Okay, I didn't quite understood what
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he means by a fish farm. I've never heard or seen
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And a fish farm, again, it was owned by
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somebody. It was a company operated it.
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And this was my understanding, and you can give me
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more detail, this project was essentially an abandoned, the
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company went out of business or decided to leave this fish farm at
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some point, but it kind of continued to keep that infrastructure. So
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all the pieces, so the nets, this was an open pen, fish
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farm, meaning that it was in the ocean, there were nets in the ocean, a series of
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nets in the ocean that you could almost, you could identify from
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the air, you know, from either satellite imagery or from
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a plane of some sort. Can you give us sort of detail of
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Exactly. So one of the big difference compared to a ghost net
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we find randomly anywhere or a ghost
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farm is that the ghost farms once
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had an owner, so it's known. With a ghost net, we
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don't know. And the other difference is the scale of the pollution. We
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are not talking about one single piece of fishing net but
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complete facilities being abandoned with scattered waste
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on the surface, covering coastlines of hundreds of meters, sometimes
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kilometers. So what we have seen was really,
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really shocking. From the distance, the coastline and
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the rocks looked white. So we thought, okay, that's white pebble.
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Till we went closer and we could see that that's the
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styrofoam, the polystyrene material degrading
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inside the pipes of the fish farm they use this material.
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If you want me to name number one evil material
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of the fish farm, then this white
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poison which is covering the coastlines in
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the sea. It's tiny particles
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floating and the fish thinks that it's food. It looks exactly
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like fish food. So it's very harmful polluting
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both both on land and at sea.
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So just imagine that you're an organization that just
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ponied up money and partnered with people to clean up a World
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War II submarine, like the debris around that area. And
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then you've done that for a week, maybe longer. You're going
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to take a couple of days vacation to relax from that intense time.
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This is hard work, folks. This is not easy work. Not only are
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you diving, you're not diving for pleasure, you're diving to take up marine debris.
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It's a little dangerous, but it's also tough work. You're taking a
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vacation for one or two days, somebody comes upon you and says, hey, you know what, if you really
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want, I love what you're doing, if you really want to help, you'll help clean
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up this ghost farm, this fish farm that was abandoned because
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it ran out of money and nobody cleaned it up. It's just sitting there.
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It's sitting there in a bay where The equipment that's
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there to hold the pens, to hold all the fish, is gone. There's
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no fish. And the pens just start to break down because there's nobody there
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to maintain the pens. So it's just broken down. It's all in the bay.
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We can't go swimming. It's gross. There's marine
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debris all over the place, like polystyrene, so basically styrofoam, that's floating around.
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And the fish are eating it. And it's not good for tourism, which many of
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these islands, these Greek islands, are based off of. It's
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just not good. It's not good for the local people. It's not good for
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the environment. So if you really want to do something, you can do
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it. And they took it upon themselves to say, hey, you know what? We
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are going to do it. I don't know how yet, but we're going to figure it out. Imagine
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that. Imagine just thinking that this is what we're going to tackle just coming
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across because you are a marine debris cleanup organization. Why
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not clean up a ghost farm, right? How do you
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go about it? How do we even start is something that is unreal
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to me, but they did it. They start off in 2020, they
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go and they clean up this fish farm and they
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learn a lot as they go through it. So much so that
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they're able to do another one in May of 2024. And
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they've been able to accomplish that a little faster. They've
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teamed up with Hyundai, who takes some of the filaments from
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the net and they make the car mats out of it.
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So they have a reason to reuse the nets. So it's
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not just discarded into a landfill. They partner with it. They help
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fund the project. And this is what comes out of
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Yeah, the experience was really shocking. I would say amazing to
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see everything that can be done here, but also really
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sad to see the situation because it's something that I was not
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expecting, even though we've already had this project, but living it here,
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live, and seeing all the waste that's everywhere. You
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only see the surface maybe around here, but everything
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that's underwater, it's completely full of nets, of
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pipes, and there's so much waste around the beach. Yeah,
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my feeling is very positive that we're doing this for the
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environment, but also very sad to see what
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Although this project is great to be able to say, hey,
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we've cleaned up two ghost farms, right? These fish farms
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that have been abandoned by their owners. Business ran dry.
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They had to give it up back to the government. Now it's a public
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entity. The government doesn't do anything with it,
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it just leaves it there, and it allows it to just basically fall
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apart. So you've been able to clean up two of these sites, but
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there's still 148 more of these ghost farm sites
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to clean up. This organization can't do it. They don't have the people power
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to do it, and they don't want to do this forever. This
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should be left up to the government. But the question is, why
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have these fish farms been left abandoned and
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not cleaned up? Are there not laws to clean these up? Veronica
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Indeed, we've been in very close contact with the local, regional
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and federal governments as well. The law is in place,
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the implementation is missing. And
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why is it missing or why the law enforcement is
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missing? That's the question. I've heard
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experts saying that the best would be if
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in the future, at the opening of any new facility, they
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put an amount of money in deposit. Yes,
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like when you rent a room and the landlady is asking you
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to pay for two months in advance. Something like that. So
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now we know the cost of the cleanups, now we know the effort it
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takes. It's very easy to put a price on it and
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ask fish farming companies
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to have this deposit in place. If they don't clean it up themselves,
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then let's say the government or the authorities are going to take this
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money and spend it on the cleanup itself. It sounds easy in
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I did do a little digging in terms of some of the laws that are around and
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there are laws that are built into environmental protection,
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they're built into aquaculture development legislation, they're built
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into code of conduct and voluntary standards, but none, and
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even a spatial planning framework, but none of them have
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the wording or the policies to actually clean up
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the fish farms when they're done. You would think that businesses would
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just do it voluntarily. If they don't continue to farm fish
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in these areas, that they would just like, okay, we're done, let's clean it
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up. No, they just wash their hands and they just say, hey, we're just gonna leave
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it here. One, they may not have the money to clean it up. It's expensive to
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do this. Like I said, 100 to 200,000 in and around that time,
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depending on where it's located and how hard it is to
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access. But they don't do it because they don't have
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the money or they've run out of time or they can't take
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care of the fish farm anymore, so they just leave it without
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any problems. Now, there are laws in place, but the enforcement is
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not great. And Veronica had this to say about the enforcement and
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maybe some future laws that should be put in place or future enforcement
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policies that should be put in place to help make sure that
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In short, the Ministry of Environment has in
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Greece and also in other countries something called an
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office which is examining environmental crimes, and
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they do agree that it's an environmental crime. The best
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thing they could advise us was to go to the police, file a
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report, maybe together with the local municipality,
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and then this office will investigate the details. which
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is fine, but then in practical terms it means a lot of
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time and money and again years at court. It
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is not like we want to add another procedure on the top of the other
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five running procedure by doing this. So we
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decided to go another path. The cleanup is
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not the goal or not the only goal. Like I mentioned, the cleanup is
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a tool to raise awareness and find
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ultimate solutions to this problem. We don't want to
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be and we cannot be the cleaners of ghost farms forever,
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right? Yeah, for sure. But we will continue to
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take action, not only with cleanups, but also community involvement,
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advocacy, educational programs we run around it
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with university students who will be the future aquaculture engineers
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and workers. Right. So we do many different type
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of activities around the cleanup. cleanups in
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order to place this ghost farm topic
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in a good position and find again,
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Veronica and Healthy Seas see a potential in
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cleaning up these sites as a way to bring about awareness
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of these ghost farms. So people have the understanding that these ghost farms exist
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and something needs to be done about them. The government needs to
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ensure that policy is laid out so it's very clear that
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cleanup is part of managing a business with
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fish farms. To have fish farms just laid around
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and degrading into the environment. Not an
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ideal situation. It makes the country look
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bad with these beautiful coastlines. Seeing the destruction
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and the degradation of these fish farms is
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not a good look, right? It's not a good look for the coastline that looks beautiful
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already. It should remain beautiful. And if you're going to do work in
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the ocean, you better clean it up. We've seen this in other industries
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like oil and gas where Wastewater ponds
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are not cleaned up because it costs too much to clean up and the government doesn't enforce
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the companies who actually created the wastewater ponds to clean
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up. We've seen that happen in Canada. We've seen it happen in
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other places. And it's just, it's sad. It's really sad
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to see because the local people who live there have
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to deal with all this stuff, the pollution, the health concerns, the
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environmental concerns. This is never a good look.
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If you're going to start a business where you're using natural resources
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or using some part of the environment, you should, and this is,
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I can't even believe I have to say this, you should have to have the responsibility to
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clean it up. Not only from a law perspective, but from an ethical
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perspective. But this just goes to show how some businesses and some
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people just act and that it is more about the
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money and the profit that it is about the cleanup and
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the effect on local people. This is why it's so important to include local
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people in the creation or in the
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talks and discussions when something like a fish farm goes
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into a local area because people need to be made aware of what
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happens and hopefully, and hopefully this video as well as
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the videos that Healthy Seas have put together in a very, very
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great way I'll link to those in the show notes in the description. But
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hopefully these videos bring about awareness to get people not only in
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Greece, but all over the world to ensure that when people work within the environment
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and have to use the environment to make a profit, they have the responsibility to
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clean it up afterwards. That's it for today's episode. I want to
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thank Healthy Seas, Veronica, I want to thank Samara
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who has really been, you know, sort of the person who's given me all the information and
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the footage to be able to create this episode
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for you. I want to create more of these episodes like this for you. I'd love to
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hear what you thought of this type of episode, this type of structure. please
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let me know. And if you're listening to this on audio, feel free to
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go over to our YouTube channel where we have more footage. You can actually
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see the footage of the cleanup and you get a better sense of what
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goes in, the equipment, the access, the people, the
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amount of people it takes to clean all of this up and the specialties that
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they have like scuba diving and floats and all this kind of stuff and boats.
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It's expensive, it's a lot of people, and I would thank the people who are doing this type
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of work that are working with Healthy Seas to doing this. I want to thank Hyundai for
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helping out as well and helped fund the project and partner on
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the project. I just want to thank you for listening and spreading this video
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around, making sure people see what is happening in Greece,
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and I'm sure this is other places as well. And I want to thank the
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government of Greece to be able to work with Healthy Seas
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to put in more policies that will help clean up these
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ghost farms. Thank you very much for joining me on this episode. If
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you want to DM me, you can do so at HowToProtectTheOcean on
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00:19:50,242 --> 00:19:53,585
Instagram. And of course, don't forget to subscribe and hit
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that notification bell to have more of these episodes
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coming right to you on your YouTube channel. And
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00:20:00,330 --> 00:20:03,553
don't forget, we're on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, everywhere. Thank you
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so much for joining me on today's episode of the HowToProtectTheOcean podcast. I'm
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00:20:06,756 --> 00:20:09,838
your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and
00:00:00,428 --> 00:00:04,691
As a critical source of food, jobs, and environmental solutions, aquaculture
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plays a vital role in feeding the world sustainably. But with great potential
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comes great responsibility. In today's episode, we'll address one of the major
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00:00:12,377 --> 00:00:15,559
challenges that threatens its sustainability. We'll uncover the
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00:00:15,599 --> 00:00:19,062
hidden issue of ghost farms, abandoned fish farms polluting our
6
00:00:19,162 --> 00:00:22,404
oceans, and organizations like Healthy Seas are working to clean up
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00:00:22,584 --> 00:00:25,927
over 150 affected sites. Stay tuned
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00:00:26,027 --> 00:00:29,831
as we discuss how policies and enforcement should improve to
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00:00:29,871 --> 00:00:33,235
ensure that the aquaculture industry can thrive while protecting our
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00:00:33,335 --> 00:00:37,100
planet and maximize its potential for future generations.
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Let's start the show. Hey
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00:00:43,071 --> 00:00:46,514
everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast I'm
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00:00:46,534 --> 00:00:49,677
your host Andrew Lewin and this is a podcast where you find out what's happening with
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00:00:49,717 --> 00:00:53,280
the ocean how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for
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00:00:53,300 --> 00:00:57,104
a better ocean by taking action. If you're new to this podcast this
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00:00:57,124 --> 00:01:00,307
is a podcast like I said we find out everything about the ocean if you want to find out
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00:01:00,387 --> 00:01:04,150
more information you can go to speakupforblue.com our website Check
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00:01:04,190 --> 00:01:07,831
out all the podcast episodes, all the YouTube shows, everything
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00:01:07,851 --> 00:01:11,572
that we have. We have other podcasts up there like Beyond Jaws and Aquadocs and
20
00:01:11,632 --> 00:01:14,953
Fancy Scientist. We have a lot of episodes out there, a lot of content for
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00:01:14,973 --> 00:01:18,254
you to find out more about the ocean, more about wildlife, and get
22
00:01:18,274 --> 00:01:21,435
yourself educated and made more aware of how you can protect the
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planet. You can also get our newsletter direct to your inbox
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Monday to Fridays at 8 a.m. just go to speakupforblue.com forward
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00:01:29,319 --> 00:01:33,382
slash newsletter to sign up. That's speakupforblue.com forward
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00:01:33,442 --> 00:01:36,704
slash newsletter to sign up. Now, let's talk about
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00:01:36,724 --> 00:01:40,126
the episode. We're gonna be talking about ghost farms. About six months ago, I
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interviewed the executive director of Healthy Seas, Veronica Mikos,
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who was on the podcast to talk about a recent ghost
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farm that they helped clean up. They created a trailer for
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it, they created a YouTube video for it, and it was
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something that inspired me to do another episode on it. I did
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a full interview, and you can check out the audio podcast on
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our podcast back, but I'll link to it in the show notes and in the description. But
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I wanted to cut up the interview a little bit and just show some of the stuff that
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they've been doing. The organization was very nice and they lent me and
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allowed me to show some of the stuff you've already seen. Some
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of the footage that they took showing how they cleaned up and what they needed
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to clean up these sites. This is one of those episodes that
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I've been wanting to do for a long time. I wanted to bring you, so I'm super
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excited to be doing this. The first thing you need to know is that this episode is gonna be
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different than my normal structure of the
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podcast. I'm gonna be cutting in and out of an interview and some of the interviews
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that they took. throughout the process of cleaning up
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a ghost farm near the island of Ithaca, as well
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as some interviews they did and some other footage they've done in the past. At
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the time of the interview that I did, they had cleaned up two ghost
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farms, but they've done more since then. We'll be
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sharing updates in the future about their progress. But the key
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thing that you need to know is that ghost farms are a problem, especially
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in Greece. There have been 150 sites identified that
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need to be cleaned up. One of the sites that they cleaned up in
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2024 had over 40 tons of plastic cleaned up.
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Marine debris, all sorts, including fishnets, including
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pipes, including the plastics and polystyrene that
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are used to float the pipes so that they stay at the surface of
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the area. There was so much to clean
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up that these cleanups cost a ton
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of money. Each of these cleanups are different in terms of how much the
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cost is going to be. Some of the costs that they've had is basically ranging from
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100 to 200,000 euros. Think about that. 100 to 200,000 euros. just
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to clean up site and they all differ because of where they're situated
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there are some places where the fish farms are located down like
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a valley into the ocean like into a bay but they have to bring
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these big machines down a side of a hill so you
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need to have the right equipment to do that It's hard to access
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the actual site just from the people, the people power that it
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takes. Sometimes the nets are buried on the ground, like underneath the
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ground. There's just little pieces that they're trying to pull off just
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to get access to the nets that are there that could pose problems
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for years and years to come. Imagine
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that effect in an area over
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and over and over again, 150 times. This
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is the problem that's identified. And
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it's really interesting in how this all came about.
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But the first thing I want to do, I want to introduce you to Veronika Mikos.
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I'm Veronika from Healthy Seas, director of the
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foundation. And already since 11 years,
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we've been focusing on plastic pollutions, more
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Healthy Seas started off as an organization
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that cleans up marine debris. There are so many different types of marine
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debris that you can clean up and the way Healthy Seas is built, it's
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built based on divers. Volunteers that go in and
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actually clean up marine debris, whether it's been like a
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scuba diver that goes down and is just doing a pleasure dive and
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just cleans up marine debris as they see it. I've seen it
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firsthand. I've seen divers like take out fishing nets, like
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cut out fishing nets from reefs and certain things like that. This is like
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more dedicated. They identify areas where there's a lots of marine debris
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and they go for it. So that's how the organization was built.
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Now, how did they come across ghost farms? Because they didn't know about
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ghost farms. Not many people knew about ghost farms. How did they come
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So we've been in Greece in
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2020, setting up a project in COVID times, which was
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not easy at all. And we cleaned
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up one of the biggest submarines of the
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Second World War from ghost nets. And that was in
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the Ionian Islands in Greece, in Cephalonia. And
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the neighboring island, Ithaca, we just really came over for
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two days of holiday to recover from all that big project.
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And then we met a local environmentalist, a
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dive center owner there, who was just literally
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telling us, I've seen you guys, what you are doing. It was
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in the news. Congratulations. If you want to clean
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up something really big, These were his words. If you
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want to clean up something really big, we got a fish farm here.
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Okay, I didn't quite understood what
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he means by a fish farm. I've never heard or seen
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And a fish farm, again, it was owned by
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somebody. It was a company operated it.
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And this was my understanding, and you can give me
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more detail, this project was essentially an abandoned, the
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company went out of business or decided to leave this fish farm at
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some point, but it kind of continued to keep that infrastructure. So
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all the pieces, so the nets, this was an open pen, fish
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farm, meaning that it was in the ocean, there were nets in the ocean, a series of
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nets in the ocean that you could almost, you could identify from
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the air, you know, from either satellite imagery or from
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a plane of some sort. Can you give us sort of detail of
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Exactly. So one of the big difference compared to a ghost net
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we find randomly anywhere or a ghost
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farm is that the ghost farms once
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had an owner, so it's known. With a ghost net, we
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don't know. And the other difference is the scale of the pollution. We
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are not talking about one single piece of fishing net but
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complete facilities being abandoned with scattered waste
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on the surface, covering coastlines of hundreds of meters, sometimes
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kilometers. So what we have seen was really,
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really shocking. From the distance, the coastline and
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the rocks looked white. So we thought, okay, that's white pebble.
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Till we went closer and we could see that that's the
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styrofoam, the polystyrene material degrading
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inside the pipes of the fish farm they use this material.
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If you want me to name number one evil material
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of the fish farm, then this white
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poison which is covering the coastlines in
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the sea. It's tiny particles
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floating and the fish thinks that it's food. It looks exactly
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like fish food. So it's very harmful polluting
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both both on land and at sea.
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So just imagine that you're an organization that just
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ponied up money and partnered with people to clean up a World
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War II submarine, like the debris around that area. And
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then you've done that for a week, maybe longer. You're going
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to take a couple of days vacation to relax from that intense time.
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This is hard work, folks. This is not easy work. Not only are
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you diving, you're not diving for pleasure, you're diving to take up marine debris.
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It's a little dangerous, but it's also tough work. You're taking a
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vacation for one or two days, somebody comes upon you and says, hey, you know what, if you really
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want, I love what you're doing, if you really want to help, you'll help clean
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up this ghost farm, this fish farm that was abandoned because
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it ran out of money and nobody cleaned it up. It's just sitting there.
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It's sitting there in a bay where The equipment that's
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there to hold the pens, to hold all the fish, is gone. There's
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no fish. And the pens just start to break down because there's nobody there
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to maintain the pens. So it's just broken down. It's all in the bay.
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We can't go swimming. It's gross. There's marine
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debris all over the place, like polystyrene, so basically styrofoam, that's floating around.
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And the fish are eating it. And it's not good for tourism, which many of
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these islands, these Greek islands, are based off of. It's
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just not good. It's not good for the local people. It's not good for
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the environment. So if you really want to do something, you can do
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it. And they took it upon themselves to say, hey, you know what? We
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are going to do it. I don't know how yet, but we're going to figure it out. Imagine
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that. Imagine just thinking that this is what we're going to tackle just coming
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across because you are a marine debris cleanup organization. Why
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not clean up a ghost farm, right? How do you
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go about it? How do we even start is something that is unreal
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to me, but they did it. They start off in 2020, they
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go and they clean up this fish farm and they
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learn a lot as they go through it. So much so that
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they're able to do another one in May of 2024. And
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they've been able to accomplish that a little faster. They've
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teamed up with Hyundai, who takes some of the filaments from
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the net and they make the car mats out of it.
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So they have a reason to reuse the nets. So it's
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not just discarded into a landfill. They partner with it. They help
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fund the project. And this is what comes out of
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Yeah, the experience was really shocking. I would say amazing to
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see everything that can be done here, but also really
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sad to see the situation because it's something that I was not
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expecting, even though we've already had this project, but living it here,
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live, and seeing all the waste that's everywhere. You
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only see the surface maybe around here, but everything
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that's underwater, it's completely full of nets, of
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pipes, and there's so much waste around the beach. Yeah,
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my feeling is very positive that we're doing this for the
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environment, but also very sad to see what
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Although this project is great to be able to say, hey,
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we've cleaned up two ghost farms, right? These fish farms
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that have been abandoned by their owners. Business ran dry.
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They had to give it up back to the government. Now it's a public
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entity. The government doesn't do anything with it,
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it just leaves it there, and it allows it to just basically fall
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apart. So you've been able to clean up two of these sites, but
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there's still 148 more of these ghost farm sites
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to clean up. This organization can't do it. They don't have the people power
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to do it, and they don't want to do this forever. This
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should be left up to the government. But the question is, why
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have these fish farms been left abandoned and
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not cleaned up? Are there not laws to clean these up? Veronica
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Indeed, we've been in very close contact with the local, regional
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and federal governments as well. The law is in place,
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the implementation is missing. And
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why is it missing or why the law enforcement is
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missing? That's the question. I've heard
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experts saying that the best would be if
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in the future, at the opening of any new facility, they
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put an amount of money in deposit. Yes,
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like when you rent a room and the landlady is asking you
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to pay for two months in advance. Something like that. So
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now we know the cost of the cleanups, now we know the effort it
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takes. It's very easy to put a price on it and
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ask fish farming companies
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to have this deposit in place. If they don't clean it up themselves,
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then let's say the government or the authorities are going to take this
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money and spend it on the cleanup itself. It sounds easy in
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I did do a little digging in terms of some of the laws that are around and
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there are laws that are built into environmental protection,
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they're built into aquaculture development legislation, they're built
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into code of conduct and voluntary standards, but none, and
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even a spatial planning framework, but none of them have
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the wording or the policies to actually clean up
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the fish farms when they're done. You would think that businesses would
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just do it voluntarily. If they don't continue to farm fish
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in these areas, that they would just like, okay, we're done, let's clean it
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up. No, they just wash their hands and they just say, hey, we're just gonna leave
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it here. One, they may not have the money to clean it up. It's expensive to
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do this. Like I said, 100 to 200,000 in and around that time,
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depending on where it's located and how hard it is to
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access. But they don't do it because they don't have
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the money or they've run out of time or they can't take
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care of the fish farm anymore, so they just leave it without
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any problems. Now, there are laws in place, but the enforcement is
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not great. And Veronica had this to say about the enforcement and
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maybe some future laws that should be put in place or future enforcement
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policies that should be put in place to help make sure that
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In short, the Ministry of Environment has in
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Greece and also in other countries something called an
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office which is examining environmental crimes, and
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they do agree that it's an environmental crime. The best
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thing they could advise us was to go to the police, file a
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report, maybe together with the local municipality,
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and then this office will investigate the details. which
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is fine, but then in practical terms it means a lot of
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time and money and again years at court. It
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is not like we want to add another procedure on the top of the other
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five running procedure by doing this. So we
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decided to go another path. The cleanup is
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not the goal or not the only goal. Like I mentioned, the cleanup is
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a tool to raise awareness and find
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ultimate solutions to this problem. We don't want to
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be and we cannot be the cleaners of ghost farms forever,
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right? Yeah, for sure. But we will continue to
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take action, not only with cleanups, but also community involvement,
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advocacy, educational programs we run around it
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with university students who will be the future aquaculture engineers
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and workers. Right. So we do many different type
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of activities around the cleanup. cleanups in
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order to place this ghost farm topic
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in a good position and find again,
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Veronica and Healthy Seas see a potential in
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cleaning up these sites as a way to bring about awareness
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of these ghost farms. So people have the understanding that these ghost farms exist
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and something needs to be done about them. The government needs to
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ensure that policy is laid out so it's very clear that
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cleanup is part of managing a business with
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fish farms. To have fish farms just laid around
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and degrading into the environment. Not an
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ideal situation. It makes the country look
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bad with these beautiful coastlines. Seeing the destruction
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and the degradation of these fish farms is
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not a good look, right? It's not a good look for the coastline that looks beautiful
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already. It should remain beautiful. And if you're going to do work in
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the ocean, you better clean it up. We've seen this in other industries
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like oil and gas where Wastewater ponds
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are not cleaned up because it costs too much to clean up and the government doesn't enforce
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the companies who actually created the wastewater ponds to clean
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up. We've seen that happen in Canada. We've seen it happen in
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other places. And it's just, it's sad. It's really sad
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to see because the local people who live there have
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to deal with all this stuff, the pollution, the health concerns, the
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environmental concerns. This is never a good look.
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If you're going to start a business where you're using natural resources
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or using some part of the environment, you should, and this is,
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I can't even believe I have to say this, you should have to have the responsibility to
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clean it up. Not only from a law perspective, but from an ethical
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perspective. But this just goes to show how some businesses and some
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people just act and that it is more about the
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money and the profit that it is about the cleanup and
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the effect on local people. This is why it's so important to include local
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people in the creation or in the
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talks and discussions when something like a fish farm goes
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into a local area because people need to be made aware of what
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happens and hopefully, and hopefully this video as well as
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the videos that Healthy Seas have put together in a very, very
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great way I'll link to those in the show notes in the description. But
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hopefully these videos bring about awareness to get people not only in
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Greece, but all over the world to ensure that when people work within the environment
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and have to use the environment to make a profit, they have the responsibility to
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clean it up afterwards. That's it for today's episode. I want to
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thank Healthy Seas, Veronica, I want to thank Samara
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who has really been, you know, sort of the person who's given me all the information and
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the footage to be able to create this episode
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for you. I want to create more of these episodes like this for you. I'd love to
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hear what you thought of this type of episode, this type of structure. please
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let me know. And if you're listening to this on audio, feel free to
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go over to our YouTube channel where we have more footage. You can actually
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see the footage of the cleanup and you get a better sense of what
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goes in, the equipment, the access, the people, the
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amount of people it takes to clean all of this up and the specialties that
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they have like scuba diving and floats and all this kind of stuff and boats.
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It's expensive, it's a lot of people, and I would thank the people who are doing this type
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of work that are working with Healthy Seas to doing this. I want to thank Hyundai for
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helping out as well and helped fund the project and partner on
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the project. I just want to thank you for listening and spreading this video
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around, making sure people see what is happening in Greece,
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and I'm sure this is other places as well. And I want to thank the
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government of Greece to be able to work with Healthy Seas
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to put in more policies that will help clean up these
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ghost farms. Thank you very much for joining me on this episode. If
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you want to DM me, you can do so at HowToProtectTheOcean on
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Instagram. And of course, don't forget to subscribe and hit
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that notification bell to have more of these episodes
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coming right to you on your YouTube channel. And
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don't forget, we're on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, everywhere. Thank you
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00:20:03,593 --> 00:20:06,736
so much for joining me on today's episode of the HowToProtectTheOcean podcast. I'm
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your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and
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