A debate is taking shape in Chile over the environmental costs of the nation’s burgeoning salmon farming industry.

Chilean salmon exports have climbed dramatically. Last year, the country sold 206,000 metric tons abroad compared to just 26,000 metric tons in 1990, bringing in $973 million. The nation is now the world’s second-largest farmed-salmon exporter after Norway.

But a report released recently by the Terram Foundation, a Santiago think tank, argues that the sector’s fast growth is not environmentally sustainable.

“If the salmon companies do not assume the environmental costs there will be a decline in the capacity of their production in the years ahead. They do not clean the liquid and solid waste that is damaging water quality—the principal asset these companies need for the fish,” says Terram economist Consuelo Espinoza, a co-author of the report.

Among the problems cited in the Terram report are these:

- Pressure on ocean fisheries. Salmon are fed fishmeal, most of which is made from anchovies, herring, and fish processing waste. According to the Worldwatch Institute, each ton of farmed salmon requires up to 5 tons of natural fish.

- Deteriorating water quality. Fesces and uneaten feed contaminate nearby waters.

- Untreated processing waste. Only 12% of salmon companies treat water containing blood and other fish-processing waste. Though some of that waste is disposed of on land, a great deal is dumped into the ocean.

- Threats to native habitats. The nearly four million exotic salmon believed to have escaped from pens crowd out native fish. They also breed with wild salmon, altering their genetic makeup and exposing them to disease.

- Overuse of antibiotics. Terram says the industry uses antibiotics heavily to combat disease in salmon, posing ecological risks.

The Chilean Salmon and Trout Producers Association, a trade group, rejects the Terram report. Its executive director, Rodrigo Infante, says the report exaggerates the environmental consequences of salmon farming.

“There isn’t any activity that does not have an impact on the environment,” Infante says. “We have an impact. But the reality of that impact is not at all of the proportion that they say we have.”

The association points out that Chile has a code of acceptable ecological practices companies can adopt to get a “green seal” for their products. And the industry has adopted a set of voluntary pollution-control goals as part of a cleaner-production agreement with Chile’s Economy Ministry, the association says. (For related article, see “Chile pushes for cleaner industry”—EcoAméricas, Dec. ’00.)

One venture considered a leader in eco-awareness is the Puerto Montt-based Patagonia Salmon Farming Company. Owner Hans Kinsman says Terram has not given the industry due credit for environmental improvements.

“If we go into each one of the report’s points, we have done a lot of things on each of them. It is not up-to-date,” Kinsman says.

Aside from the Terram report, another lightning rod in the salmon debate is Daniel Albertan, Chile’s current fisheries undersecretary and a former president of the salmon-farming association.

Environmentalists charge Albertan has shown a strong, pro-industry bias. They cite his recent announcement that the undersecretariat would authorize salmon farming in more areas of Chile’s southern region, and they point to his position that stronger environmental oversight of the salmon industry is not needed.

“The undersecretary of fisheries must take responsibility for risking the future of the region,” says Marcel Claude, Terram’s president. “If he increases the areas of salmon farming he also is increasing contamination of the region.”

The National Fisheries Service already requires salmon farms to provide treatment for liquid and solid wastes within five years, but critics assert the rules are not being enforced.

Terram argues that besides bolstering clean-water laws and enforcement, Chile should tax salmon companies to generate cleanup funds. Its report already has prompted the Chilean Senate’s environmental commission to begin studying how to improve salmon-farm oversight. Terram’s Espinoza says the national environmental agency, Conama, also must get involved.

“Up to now, Conama has not contacted salmon companies about [environmental] damage,” Espinoza says. “Furthermore, there are few water-quality norms, which Conama could introduce on its own. How can it be that if these companies contaminate the environment, nobody does anything?”