Death alarm clams made in Adriatic. A concern for our fleet of approximately 710 companies and over 1600 employees and an associated industry of another 300 wholesale marketing companies with another thousand employees. The problem was "turned" to Ue, which however at the moment not only does not have tools and information, but rather does not hide it doubts on our country's ability to best protect and conserve the marine environment, the natural cradle - among other things - of the clams themselves.
Italy-EU question and answer
It was the Northern League MEP who raised the problem at community level Massimo Casanova, concerned by the size reached by the death of clams, with peaks of up to 80 percent of the farmed population. And so he asks the commission "what urgent solutions he intends to implement, also on an economic level". The Commissioner for the Environment and the Sea replies to him, Virginius Sinkevicius, which indicates as a plausible cause of the death thetemperature increase of the sea: “In 2023 the surface temperature of the Adriatic Sea was higher than the long-term average and high river discharges (due to heavy rainfall) reduced coastal salinity in early summer. Such variations in oceanographic parameters could constitute additional environmental stressors for clams." And in fact - he points out - "the Commission has not been notified of exceptional levels of clam mortality in other areas in recent months".
Finger pointing towards Italy
Therefore it is an issue that concerns only the Adriatic. But the commissioner goes further when he recalls that "Member States are required to implement strategies for the marine environment to achieve good ecological status, thus ensuring that EU waters and the species they host are in good health” and that “the latest available report on the Italian waters of the Adriatic Sea is based on information collected before of 2023 and does not address the issue of the recent clam die-off. The previous available report indicates that in the Italian waters of the Adriatic Sea the good ecological status” based on 11 indices that include fish and molluscs exploited for commercial purposes, including clams.
A new report is requested by next October
And therefore the request: "The next report on the state of the marine environment should be transmitted to the Commission by 15 October 2024". And the possible measures "also of an economic nature" requested in the question? Commissioner Sinkevicius points out that "The regulation relating to the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFF) allows Member States to activate, within their EMFFA programmes, interventions for the protection and stabilization of business income aquaculture through compensation and insurance schemes. Furthermore, under these programs Member States may also provide support for aquaculture that provides environmental services and for interventions that ensure the health and welfare of animals in aquaculture."
