Oil spill cripples Spain fishing villages' economy
Date: 26-Nov-02
Country: SPAIN
Author: Adrian Croft
Thousands of tonnes of thick fuel oil leaked from the Prestige before it sank in the Atlantic last Tuesday, turning pristine beaches and craggy inlets on the Galician coast into stinking quagmires of tar.
Fishing and harvesting of the region's rich shellfish resources have been banned along nearly 500 km (300 miles) of Galician coast, throwing thousands of fishermen out of work and creating a knock-on effect on the entire local economy.
The disaster affects ship repairers, hauliers who transport the catch and businesses where the fishermen spend their wages - as well as restaurants and hotels used by tourists who may be put off by the damage to Galicia's outstanding scenery of mountains, forests and wild beaches.
Antonio Bar Arias, owner of a seafood restaurant in Malpica, a picture-postcard fishing village that was hit by the oil spill, is worried. "It affects the whole village," he said.
The ban on local fishing will hit supplies, and customers may be afraid to eat the fish and shellfish that are available in case they are tainted by the spill, he said.
With luck, things will be back to normal by the summer, when his business is 99 percent dependent on tourists, mostly from other parts of Spain, he said.
Maria Facal Doldan, who works at a nearby hotel, said the hotel business was also affected. "Let's hope it gets cleaned up (by summer), because if not, what are we going to do? Then we would die of hunger," she said with a grim chuckle.
CHRISTMAS SALES LOST
In Malpica harbour, brightly painted fishing boats sit idle. Fishermen say shellfish and barnacles, Galician delicacies sought after throughout Spain, will be destroyed by the oil and could take years to regenerate. The Prestige disaster came at a bad time, just before the Christmas season when Spaniards buy large quantities of shellfish.
"It's a very nice Christmas present," retired seaman Antonio Fereiroa said bitterly, speaking last week at a beach north of La Coruna covered by lumps of fuel oil. "It's a terrible disaster for shellfish harvesters, fishermen, everything."
Although Galicia has some new industries - fast-growing fashion retailer Inditex, famous for its Zara stores, is based there - fishing and tourism remain vital to the economy, each accounting for 10 percent of the region's economic output.
Fishing is a 2.4 billion euro ($2.4 billion) industry in Galicia, which the regional government calls the most important fishing area in Europe. Some 28,000 Galicians work on board ships and each job at sea generates up to five jobs on land.
Some 7,000 idled fishermen have been promised government aid of 1,200 euros a month, but people in related businesses such as fish wholesalers and hoteliers complain they will get nothing.
At the Mercado da Guarda fish market in the Galician port city of La Coruna, sales of shellfish have fallen because of health fears which the retailers say are unfounded.
"People are very influenced by the media. They think everything is contaminated," said shellfish business owner Maria de la Merced Malvarez. The barnacles and clams on sale at her stand are from areas of Galicia untouched by the oil and are in perfect condition, she said.
She said the oil spill had had knock-on effects throughout the Galician economy. "It's a chain that starts in the sea and ends in any type of business. Because if I don't earn, I don't spend," she said.
Another shellfish business owner, Maricarmen Seijo, said people were not buying and, in any case, local supplies were expected to run out this week. "This means total ruin, because they are paying the shellfishermen (compensation), but we don't get anything," she said.
(Additional reporting by Emma Ross-Thomas).