Abandoned Fish Farms in Greece: Ghost Farm Clean Up by Healthy Seas

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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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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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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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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