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Abandoned Fish Farms in Greece: Ghost Farm Clean Up by Healthy Seas · How To Protect The Ocean

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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.
• 0:37
  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
• 0:53
  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
• 1:00
  more information you can go to speakupforblue.com our website Check
• 1:04
  out all the podcast episodes, all the YouTube shows, everything
• 1:07
  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
• 1:33
  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
• 18:14
  the videos that Healthy Seas have put together in a very, very
• 18:18
  great way I'll link to those in the show notes in the description. But
• 18:22
  hopefully these videos bring about awareness to get people not only in
• 18:25
  Greece, but all over the world to ensure that when people work within the environment
• 18:29
  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
• 18:36
  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
• 18:43
  the footage to be able to create this episode
• 18:47
  for you. I want to create more of these episodes like this for you. I'd love to
• 18:50
  hear what you thought of this type of episode, this type of structure. please
• 18:54
  let me know. And if you're listening to this on audio, feel free to
• 18:57
  go over to our YouTube channel where we have more footage. You can actually
• 19:00
  see the footage of the cleanup and you get a better sense of what
• 19:04
  goes in, the equipment, the access, the people, the
• 19:07
  amount of people it takes to clean all of this up and the specialties that
• 19:11
  they have like scuba diving and floats and all this kind of stuff and boats.
• 19:14
  It's expensive, it's a lot of people, and I would thank the people who are doing this type
• 19:18
  of work that are working with Healthy Seas to doing this. I want to thank Hyundai for
• 19:21
  helping out as well and helped fund the project and partner on
• 19:24
  the project. I just want to thank you for listening and spreading this video
• 19:28
  around, making sure people see what is happening in Greece,
• 19:31
  and I'm sure this is other places as well. And I want to thank the
• 19:35
  government of Greece to be able to work with Healthy Seas
• 19:38
  to put in more policies that will help clean up these
• 19:42
  ghost farms. Thank you very much for joining me on this episode. If
• 19:46
  you want to DM me, you can do so at HowToProtectTheOcean on
• 19:50
  Instagram. And of course, don't forget to subscribe and hit
• 19:53
  that notification bell to have more of these episodes
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  coming right to you on your YouTube channel. And
• 20:00
  don't forget, we're on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, everywhere. Thank you
• 20:03
  so much for joining me on today's episode of the HowToProtectTheOcean podcast. I'm
• 20:06
  your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and