Plans for intensive octopus farm fail to address significant environmental concerns, documents show
The Canary Islands government has rejected an environmental report submitted by Spanish corporation Nueva Pescanova for its proposed octopus farm.
The company behind the construction of the world’s first intensive octopus farm has failed to adequately consider the facility's significant threats to wildlife, the environment, and public health, new documents reveal.
Spanish corporation Nueva Pescanova is working to open a commercial octopus farm at the Port of Las Palmas on Gran Canaria island, where over one million captive octopuses will be raised and killed yearly for human consumption.
Nueva Pescanova claims to be committed to ‘maintaining biodiversity,’ ‘protecting the ecosystem,’ and ‘promoting the circular economy. However, the environmental report submitted by the company for the proposed farm was considered insufficient and rejected by the Canary Islands government due to concerns over the facility’s damaging environmental impact.
“Nueva Pescanova’s environmental report was inadequate, lacking basic information to allow the Government to assess the impact of the farm on the environment and public health,” said lawyer Maria Angeles López, on behalf of the team of Legal Natura legal experts who examined the documents. “It’s up to the company to prove that the farm would not impact on protected species or risk public health before permission can be granted, yet the company has failed to address even the most basic of these concerns.”
Among the concerns cited by the Canary Islands government is the facility's close proximity to a Marine Protected Area (MPA) poses significant risks to local wildlife, including protected cetaceans such as dolphins and porpoises, as well as vulnerable sea turtles. The noise and water pollution generated by the intensive octopus farming operation could harm the species that the MPA is designed to protect.
The farm also threatens the surrounding environment, particularly the already highly contaminated harbor waters, through increased CO2 emissions, odor concerns, and various discharges.
These factors contribute to the further degradation of the local ecosystem, exacerbating existing environmental issues such as the decline of a protected species of algae, Cystoseira, which is present in the surrounding area.
The negative impacts also extend to public health, as Nueva Pescanova is using nearby seawater that is not of high enough quality for human food production, in turn raising concerns about potential contamination and the safety of consuming octopuses raised in such conditions.
“It is unjustifiable to introduce this new type of factory farming, as climate scientists warn of the urgent need to change our food systems.”
Additionally, it is feared that the seafood company’s highly unsustainable practices, such as the use of wild fish as feed, would contribute to overfishing, contradicting the company’s claims that an octopus farm would ease fishing pressure on wild populations.
“Not only would this octopus farm cause cruelty to these naturally solitary and intelligent animals and be environmentally unsustainable, it’s also hypocritical for Nueva Pescanova to push plans that contradict their own corporate sustainability claims,” said Dr Elena Lara, a marine biologist and Senior Research Manager at Compassion in World Farming.
The probability of these impacts was considered to be “significantly high” by the Canary Islands Government. Nueva Pescanova will be required to undertake a new environmental impact assessment.
“The environmental monitoring programme […] must be designed in such a way that the environmental situation is known before work begins, during the construction phase and subsequently during the project’s operational phase”, the government stated.
International Opposition
Since knowledge of the octopus farm became public in 2021 when Nueva Pescanova applied for necessary permits, scientists, conservationists, politicians, and animal advocates have opposed the controversial new plant.
More than 50,000 Species Unite supporters signed a petition expressing urgent concerns about the ethics of farming octopuses, an animal that has never successfully been bred and raised in captivity due to complexities surrounding their diet, health, and anatomy.
As advocates fight to prevent Nueva Pescanova from opening the Canary Islands facility, others have championed legislation to halt the sector in its tracks. In March, the state of Washington officially banned octopus farming after it successfully passed in the State House and Senate.
55-day-old paralarva at Nueva Pescanova. Photo: Nueva Pescanova
Octopus Consumption
The global market for octopuses expanded from $1.30 billion to $2.72 billion between 2010 and 2019, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the demand shows no signs of slowing down.
Nueva Pescanova claims their industrial-scale farm would alleviate this strain on wild octopus populations, but critics have slammed this notion, pointing out that farmed octopuses require live food and can consume up to two percent of their body weight daily in fish and other sea creatures.
"Octopuses naturally feed on crabs and clams, small fish in the wild," Ben Williamson, U.S. director of Compassion in World Farming, told NPR. Referring to the proteins the animals would need to grow to a marketable size, Williamson added, "It's estimated that it would take at least three pounds of wild-caught fish to produce one pound of farmed octopus. So it's completely unsustainable in that respect."
Rather than finding new ways of farming these animals, advocates argue that we should be leaving octopuses off our plates altogether, opting instead for cruelty-free, environmentally friendly plant-based alternatives.
“It is unjustifiable to introduce this new type of factory farming, as climate scientists warn of the urgent need to change our food systems and evolve our diets to become more sustainable,” said Keri Tietge, aquatic animals policy officer, Eurogroup for Animals. “We deserve better than continued environmental devastation to fill corporate pockets, and these incredible animals deserve better than lives diminished to confinement and suffering.”
Species Unite submitted its petition, signed by 52,781 supporters, to the Spanish Government and European Union. Unfortunately their response was not sufficient and shows us that they are not ready to do the right thing when it comes to protecting octopuses from becoming the next victims of factory farming.
Their response stated in part:“As regards animal welfare, as you mention in your letter, the existing animal welfare legislation is not applicable to invertebrate animal species and there are currently no EU rules for the protection of octopuses kept for farming purposes” They went on to note that the European Commission plans to look into this issue between now and 2030!
That is unacceptable! Octopuses cannot wait that long when the threat of factory farming is getting closer every day.
Please join us in demanding that the European Commission update their existing animal welfare legislation to cover invertebrate animal species, including octopuses, now - you can add your name here.
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