Controversial plans to build a huge salmon farm off the west coast of Ireland are being considered by the government in Dublin.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.
The activity is suitable for intermediate 2 students.
1 The Aran Islands have been chosen as the site for the farm because of the protection they offer.
2 The Aran Islands are quite close to the main Irish islands.
3 People who oppose the plan fear the farm will scare visitors off.
4 The salmon industry in Ireland is on a par with the Scandinavian countries.
5 Most of the Irish fish is eaten in Asia.
6 Locals fear the fish farm will be harmful to the wildlife in the area.
7 Forty per cent of salmon return to the ocean after spawning.
Europe’s western edge, and it’s in these waters where an Irish state agency wants to build the country’s biggest salmon farm. The location’s been chosen for the shelter offered by the remote Aran Islands from the open Atlantic beyond. Ireland is in deep economic water, in recession five years after a banking crisis sent the country’s economy on the rocks.
Less than a thousand people live on the remote Irish-speaking islands, with money against the plan to harvest a new bounty from the sea fearing it will change the islands forever.
People come out here for the peace and quiet, for our clean waters, for our beautiful beach. If that’s filthy, if that’s polluted they won’t be coming here, they’ll be going elsewhere.
There’s already salmon farming in Ireland, but on a smaller scale compared to countries like Norway and Scotland. The government in Dublin wants to develop it from the 85 million € is worth today, hoping more jobs and money will flow from the waters around Ireland’s coast.
90% of the fish here are destined for dinner tables in Switzerland and Germany, but with huge growing demand in India and China, those behind the salmon farm project off the Aran Islands say that it’s a huge opportunity for Ireland.
As a government agency, we’re not going to make any profits from this. No individual involved in promoting the project is going to get paid a penny extra or a penny less as a result. So we’re in this to… to help bring about the recovery of Ireland.
The economic crisis hit remote rural areas hard. Unemployment has sent money packing to emigrate, so the prospect of new jobs that salmon farming might bring is welcomed by some.
I have people coming down here and… looking for work. Their parents have come down here after and asked me ‘have I any job that will give their son a reason to get out of bed in the morning?’ I think that is very sad and I think them people deserve a chance.
In the heart of the capital of the west of Ireland lies one of the country’s top wild salmon fisheries. Fish return to spawn, migrating from the seas for the proposed fish farm will lie. Scientist here fear the farm will bring huge numbers of lice and parasites, which will devastate the wild fish stocks.
Well, for every hundred small salmon, juvenile salmon that leave, you would expect about five per cent back, so that’s five in a hundred. And we have researched that show that if the farm was built and had the impact that we’ve seen previously in other experiments we’ve done, you could lose forty per cent of those returning fish.
Those behind the scheme to double the size of Ireland’s salmon farming industries say it won’t damage the environment. It will be for the Irish government to choose between the conflicting scientific arguments and what the future is to be for Galway Bay and its communities.
Diarmad Fleming BBC News the Aran Islands.
Key:
1T 2F 3T 4F 5F 6F 7F
