#37: Catalina Cendoya (Por El Mar) – Patagonia Special 2/3 – The Dark Side of Aquaculture.
This episode is part 2 of a special series recorded as I was travelling across Argentina and Chile, connecting with ocean founders, entrepreneurs, experts and activists.
My guest today is Catalina Cendoya, whom I met when I visited a marine conservation organisation called Por El Mar (literally translates to "For the Sea"). Por El Mar coordinates projects across Patagonia, including, for example, rewilding subantarctic kelp forests in Tierra del Fuego and working on the conservation of a biological corridor off the coast of Argentina that includes 5 major marine species: sharks, orcas, whales, sea lions and dolphins.
Catalina, or Cata, as everybody calls her, specifically is the Director of the Global Salmon Farming Resistance, which is the group behind the campaign that resulted in the ban of open-net salmon farming in Argentina, and it is now (as the name suggests) a global network.
It was a really open and honest conversation, looking at all the different perspectives on the matter. And it was a nice way for me to get out of my bubble and challenge my own assumptions.
So if you’re up for the challenge, please enjoy!
Catalina's Bio:
Catalina feels at home by the coast, close to the sea, surrounded by nature. That deep sense of belonging has shaped her path, leading her to join The Global Salmon Farming Resistance (GSFR) in 2022. In 2023, she became the Director.
She holds a degree in Political Science, driven by a commitment to creating meaningful change in people’s lives. She has worked in government roles supporting people in vulnerable situations and studied in Germany, where she learnt the language and was inspired by a culture deeply rooted in environmental care.
As Director of the GSFR, Catalina leads the alliance’s actions and works with the team to shape strategies that protect the ocean from the harms of industrial salmon farming.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Introduction to The Ocean Age and Guest Introduction
00:02:04 - Catalina Cendoya's Background and Journey
00:05:15 - Por el Mar and the Campaign to Ban Salmon Farming in Argentina
00:10:06 - What Is Open Net Salmon Farming?
00:12:58 - Environmental Impacts: Pollution, Disease, and Escapes
00:21:12 - Social and Economic Challenges for Local Communities
00:27:05 - Consumer Awareness and Norway's Marketing Success
00:31:00 - Can Salmon Farming Be Made Sustainable?
00:42:49 - Economic Arguments: Norway, Chile, and Tourism
00:49:10 - The Problem with Regulation and Certification Schemes
00:58:06 - Salmon vs Other Protein Sources: A Comparison
01:04:36 - Alternative Ocean Economies and Other Fish Species
01:06:12 - Global Movement: Key Victories and Milestones
01:09:48 - The Power of Global Collaboration with Local Solutions
01:13:45 - Vision for the Future and Resources to Learn More
Useful Links & Resources:
Catalina Cendoya on LinkedIn
The Global Salmon Farming Resistance (GSFR): Website, LinkedIn
Get in touch with The Ocean Age's host Fed DeGobbi on LinkedIn, X or by emailing directly at fed@oceanage.co
The Ocean Age Podcast is produced by Charlotte Raffo and edited by Nebojsa Lešević. Sarah Carpenter and Giulia Leanza are our research assistants.
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Fed DeGobbi:
Hello and welcome to The Ocean Age. I'm Fed DeGobbi and this episode is part two of a special series recorded as I was travelling across Argentina and Chile connecting with ocean founders, entrepreneurs, experts and activists. No worries if you've missed the first episode. Each of these in-person conversations are completely independent from each other so you can listen to them in whichever order you like or just pick and choose the ones that you are most interested in. My guest today is Catalina Cendoya, whom I met when I visited a marine conservation organization called Por el Mar, literally translates to For the Sea. Por el Mar coordinates projects across Patagonia. including, for example, rewilding of sub-Antarctic kelp forests in Tierra del Fuego and working on the conservation of a biological corridor off the coast of Argentina that includes five major marine species, sharks, orcas, whales, sea lions and dolphins. Catalina, or Cata as everybody calls her, specifically is the director of the Global Salmon Farming Resistance, which is a group behind the campaign that resulted in the ban of open net salmon farming in Argentina, and is now, as the name suggests, a global network. It was a really open and honest conversation looking at all the different perspectives on the matter and it was a really nice way for me to get out of my bubble and challenge my own assumptions. Aristotle supposedly said that the mark of an educated mind is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas without necessarily believing either of them. I think you might find yourself in that position after listening to this episode. So, if you're up for the challenge, please enjoy. Kata, thank you so much for having me here. It's a beautiful office you've got. We're here in the garden with the birds and some jets. So, yeah, thank you so much for taking the time.
Catalina Cendoya: Thank you for inviting me.
Fed DeGobbi: So you are the director of the Global Salmon Farming Resistance. Yes. What should people know about your background and your story that explains why you are where you are now?
Catalina Cendoya: I studied political sciences since I was a kid. I grew up in the middle of the countryside, surrounded by nature. And the reason I studied political sciences was because I wanted to do something for the country. I was also really idealist at that time. And I wanted to work at the government, do something for the people that weren't having a good time here in Argentina, that were more vulnerable. And that's how, when I finished college, I started working at the government, specifically more focused on social affairs. But then I started working with different organizations that had a really integral approach. And I wanted also to target social affairs through environmental aspects as well. So when I was working here at the government and then I decided to go and study further in Germany, so I moved to Andorra to save some money so that I could go to Germany afterwards. But that was during COVID. So I was sent back home. But the good part is that I wouldn't be here if it weren't for that, because I was sent back home, but to the countryside. So I connected again with nature. I hadn't been living in the big city in Buenos Aires for too long at that moment. So I reconnected also with the ocean. The town I come from is near the ocean.
Fed DeGobbi: Where is that?
Catalina Cendoya: Necochea. It's 500 kilometers away from here.
Fed DeGobbi: On the East Coast.
Catalina Cendoya: Yes. So I thought to myself, I need to do something for the ocean and for the environment. But I had no idea where to start. And then I thought, OK, now I can go to Germany, finish my studies.
Fed DeGobbi: And when is this roughly?
Catalina Cendoya: This was 2020, around August 2020 that I was sent back home. And then my former boss from the government contacted me and said, hey, I'm working now for a brand new NGO. It's called Por el Mar. It's to protect the ocean. And I would like you to come with me and work in one of our projects. So I actually couldn't believe it at that moment. I thought this is exactly what I wanted. And she told me, you're going to have a lot of connections with people from around the world that I know you like. You love different cultures. You like to speak different languages as well. So I think this fits perfectly. And I started working around the end of 2022 at the Global Salmon Farming Resistance.
Fed DeGobbi: Right. So just to clarify for people that might not be familiar with it. So right now we are in the office of the PORALMAR in Buenos Aires. What is the relationship between PORALMAR and the Global Samoa Farming Resistance Group?
Catalina Cendoya: The GSFR, the Global Salmon Farming Resistance, is a project of Por el Mar. Por el Mar is an NGO based here in Argentina. It started in 2022. And one of the main reasons why the GSFR is hosted in Por el Mar is because in 2021 we managed to prohibit open net salmon farming in Argentina. with help from people from all around the world. So the founders of Por el Mar were part of that fight. They were one of the people that were leading that. So when they decided to start the Global Salmon Farming Resistance, because they saw how this international collaboration worked here in Argentina, They thought, okay, what's best than starting it here with the girls that actually managed to prohibit it. So that's why we started here. But we started in 2021 with around 40 people from 12 different countries. We are now more than 115 members from 19 different countries. Yes. So it's quite a global movement.
Fed DeGobbi: So you mentioned the campaign to ban OpenNet summer farming here in Argentina. Could you take us back to when this campaign started and how did that develop?
Catalina Cendoya: In 2018, we learned that our government had signed an agreement with the Norwegian government to install salmon farms in the Vigel Channel. The Vigel Channel is in Tierra del Fuego. It's our most southern province, and it's one of our most pristine places. So at that time, we don't have salmon farms in Argentina.
Fed DeGobbi: So in 2018, there were none.
Catalina Cendoya: There were none. There are still none now. But at that time, there were none. We knew not much about salmon farms, but we thought if this is industrial fishing with lots of salmon in cages, then we need to learn more about this because it does not sound good. So people started asking people in Chile, Norway, Canada, Scotland, about the impacts of salmon farming. So when we realized we didn't want this type of industry in our country, we started doing a campaign that lasted three years, from 2018 to 2021. And what we did was actually show the community This is our biodiversity right now. This is what we have. This is what Chile has now. And we showed them all the destruction that these farms had brought to Chilean seabed, all of the environmental impacts that it has. And we showed them to the people and we said, if we allow this industry, then this is what we are going to get. So people also started fighting and they said, we don't want this. We also had a lot of actions together with chefs, our chefs. where we had our most well-known chef, who is called Francis Malman, who took part in this campaign and he was one of the key actors telling people what actually this was about. He already didn't sell salmon because he knew about the impacts that it had. So he was one of the key persons and a lot of other chefs that joined. So then we did a documentary showing all of this. We showed the legislators as well what we had found that people actually didn't want these farms. People started asking the legislators to protect our coastal waters, to protect what we have and our environment. In June 2021, the legislature of Tierra del Fuego unanimously passed a law prohibiting salmon farming in the waters of the province.
Fed DeGobbi: And it was Tierra del Fuego because it's a separate province from Argentina? How does that work?
Catalina Cendoya: No, it's a province
Fed DeGobbi: Oh, of Argentina.
Catalina Cendoya: Yes. It's one of our provinces, but in Argentina, the provincial waters go from mile, I mean, from the coast to mile 12. And then it starts the federal waters.
Fed DeGobbi: That makes sense.
Catalina Cendoya: So salmon farms would have been in provincial waters. That's why the campaign was provincial. And Tierra del Fuego was chosen at that time because salmon farms are usually sited in really cold water coastlines. So that's why it was going to be there.
Fed DeGobbi: Obviously for Argentina that's the coldest water. Yes. The coldest it's going to get.
Catalina Cendoya: Yes, the coalesce water, but also with certain conditions to be able to put the farms because we don't, in other provinces, we have really, sorry, the word in English, a huge tidal difference and it's more hostile. So to put it in order to put the farms.
Fed DeGobbi: So down South is more protected.
Catalina Cendoya: Yes, because we have this channel.
Fed DeGobbi: Yeah. Like almost like fjords.
Catalina Cendoya: Exactly. Yeah. In the Chilean side, we have these fjords and in the Argentinian side, we have this channel.
Fed DeGobbi: Okay, so it's more secluded and protected.
Catalina Cendoya: Yes, exactly.
Fed DeGobbi: You couldn't put a salmon farm in Mar del Plata?
Catalina Cendoya: No, I don't think the water is cold enough.
Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, of course.
Catalina Cendoya: We have been hearing that maybe in Santa Cruz, which is also a southern province, there may be ideas, but again, the tidal is really, really strong and there's a difference, so the conditions are not perfect.
Fed DeGobbi: So we started talking about open net salmon farming. Let's start by defining the problem, right? First of all, you are fighting specifically against open net salmon farming. What does that mean? What I mean by that is, how would you define open net salmon farming?
Catalina Cendoya: Well, salmon farms are essentially salmon field lots that are cages in the ocean, open cages with a net. It's done with a net. And they've got the size, each cage has approximately the size of a football field for us to imagine the dimension. And in those farms, you've got thousands and thousands of salmon cramped and living in really hostile conditions. So while in the wild salmon are really athletic, they are great swimmers. They can swim up to 30 or 40 kilometers a day and they swim really large distances and at a really high speed. In these cages, they swim practically in circles and they are really, it's really overcrowded. So what you get there is that the spread of disease and the spread of parasites is a lot more common than if they were in the wild, because they are so cramped. So you've got disease, you've got viruses, you've got parasites, and then you've got to treat them for all of that.
Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, so to stop you there, just again for people that might not be familiar with this, the open net element is essentially, if I understand it correctly, the fact that the fish is in this cage, which is closed for them I guess, but it's open to water coming in and flowing through it.
Catalina Cendoya: Exactly, it has no barrier.
Fed DeGobbi: for the water?
Catalina Cendoya: Yes, so the water flows freely and this means that it contaminates not only the cage inside but also its surroundings. It has a lot of impact for the fish but also for the whole ecosystem because they're not closed. I mean, salmon cannot escape because they are big enough for the holes, but it's essentially net that is surrounding the cage. So there's a particular parasite, it's called coelis, that it attaches to the skin of the fish. It eats them alive, practically. And the main problem that salmon farmers have with it is that it gets stronger and stronger. So in order to get rid of them, the pesticides need to get stronger and stronger as well.
Fed DeGobbi: So develop a resistance to the chemicals.
Catalina Cendoya: Yes, that we are using. So it has a lot of different impacts. For instance, there's a specific pesticide that has a lot of impacts on crustaceans. And actually this was noted firstly in Canada when there was a mass die-off of lobsters that were surrounding the areas where salmon farms were. And when they started digging in and studying what had happened, it was an overuse of this pesticide that had really bad impact on them. So mass mortalities inside the cages are also quite common, and they occur really often. So they are constantly treated with antibiotics, pesticides, different chemicals, vaccines. And this all flows, as we said before, through those nets into the environment. So it affects of course the wildlife, like the example I mentioned with the lobster, but also other fish, wild salmon if you're talking in the northern hemisphere, and also they create what we call dead zones. That's an area of the ocean where it's deprived of oxygen and no life can thrive there.
Fed DeGobbi: Where does that happen?
Catalina Cendoya: That happens in the places where the nets are because of all of these things that are thrown into the water. Excess of feed, the pellets that also contain, for instance, colorants and different things apart from fish meal, fish oil, all the chemicals that are thrown, the pesticides, everything flows directly. It stays in the seabed of the ocean and what you get some years later is that that zone is completely dead. Actually, it's also not rare that they have to move from one place to another because there comes a time where their own fish cannot survive there. We visited in June a facility in Norway and they were really proud about the fact that they were able, they told us they were able to control different stuff as the lights and different things but they also told us that this was the site where the facility was totally new because they had to move it because it was all dead in the previous site. And they were trying to improve now the conditions but we still saw a lot of this still happening.
Fed DeGobbi: So even for the salmon themselves, it comes a time where you can't stay in that site anymore, you have to move to a fresher area.
Catalina Cendoya: Yes, it happens not always, but it's often that it happens.
Fed DeGobbi: And do we know much about how quickly the affected area gets restored after?
Catalina Cendoya: We don't know much. We know that we have only one example in British Columbia, in Canada. There were sites in the Discovery Islands. but they managed to take them out because it was on the migration route of a juvenile wild salmon and they could, the statement was that when the salmon came they were really young. At that time they would stop at Discovery Islands before I don't know if you know this, but salmon are born in the rivers. They swim down when they're adolescents or juvenile, and then they swim to the ocean. They live in the ocean and then they come back to the river. They swim against the current to spawn and die. So when these juvenile were passing through the Discovery Islands, they would stay for a while there before going to the ocean. And we could see that a lot less fish would arrive to the ocean than the ones coming from the river. So they decided to take those farms out. It's been, I'm not exactly sure, but I believe it's two years now since they did that. And although there's not a specific proof, there can be a correlation because it's seen how it's starting to restore again, how salmon and other fish are again boosting their numbers. So we believe it can be restored, but I don't know exactly how long it takes. I'm guessing it also depends on where it is, if you have other regenerative organisms like kelp around it or not. I'm not sure.
Fed DeGobbi: Just want to make sure that we covered all the various aspects of the adverse environmental effects of summer farming. I think, did you think, was there anything else? Yes. Yes, go for it.
Catalina Cendoya: No, I mean, that's obviously the main side of it, but there's also another problem, which is that salmon often escape because, as I said before, it's a net. Predators come close to a net, they see a lot of fish, they want to eat it, and they try to break the net in order to get to them.
Fed DeGobbi: What sort of predators are we talking about?
Catalina Cendoya: marine mammals like sea lions, seabirds also. So we've got two things there. One is that they often get entangled in the nets or are shot by the salmon farmers in order to prevent them from breaking the net. But more often than not they do break the net or it's broken for other reasons as well and salmon escape. This has a lot of terrible impacts depending on where we are talking about. If you're talking about the northern hemisphere, you get native salmon there. So you would be, I mean, farmed salmon would be spreading disease and parasites to them. They would compete for their food. and they also interbreed, but these fish are not bred to survive in the wild. They're bred to get fat quickly. So the problem there is that when they interbreed, then the young salmon are weakened, there's an introgression gene there, and then it's harder for them to survive in the wild.
Fed DeGobbi: So it lowers the population in the wild?
Catalina Cendoya: Exactly. That's mainly in the northern hemisphere, but in the southern hemisphere, like Chile, Australia, we have salmon farms in those places, but we don't have native salmon.
Fed DeGobbi: Okay, so the salmon there is completely
Catalina Cendoya: It's an introduced species when they escape. And I don't know if you knew this, but salmon are carnivorous. So you're introducing not only a new species, but a top predator in an ecosystem that is not prepared to fight them. So it also has a lot of catastrophic issues. So that would be all the environmental, I'm sure there are more, but… Okay, well if anything comes up.
Fed DeGobbi: And now that we looked at the environmental side of things, I wonder if there are, outside of the environmental impact, whether there are other challenges surrounding summer farming that are not environmental.
Catalina Cendoya: I think the first thing to take into account is that if you destroy an environment, you are also destroying that coastal community's livelihoods. So there are a lot of people around the world that rely on the ocean for their main support, their main economy, and in many cases what you get is that The farms are installed along the coastlines, mainly. There are some offshore trials, but they're mainly in the coastlines. So on the one hand, they compete with local fisheries for space. Fisheries cannot navigate where salmon farms are. But at the same time, they are also polluting their fishing grounds. So, for instance, one of the arguments that we had in Tierra del Fuego was that we've got the king crab. That's one of our main premium products in Tierra del Fuego. It also supports a lot of touristic activities because the gastronomy and the tourism are really tight and many of our local restaurants serve king crab. and killing crab is a crustaceous. So if you installed the farms there with all the pesticides that have this impact on crustaceans, then we would be ruining our most precious local product. So there's that problem on one hand, But then we also have got other problems because we've got some patrimonial and cultural problems. In Australia, for instance, in Macquarie Harbour specifically, lives a skate. It's called the Mojian skate, and it's from the era of the dinosaurs and due to climate change and salmon farming activity, which are installed in the middle of Macquarie Harbour. we are bringing it to the brink of extinction. And then you also got other problems with food sovereignty, local rights. In Canada and Chile, for instance, there are a lot of issues regarding the native communities because many of the Salmon farms are located in territories that used to belong or that still belong to the native communities, but they cannot use or not use, but I mean, actually rely on the ocean. And there you've got a problem with their local rights, with their food sovereignty. If they cannot fish there, then where do they get the food from? So it's not only an environmental issue, but it brings a lot of issues around it regarding the local communities, the local fisheries. As I said before, it also affects tourism and other activities that are… And the other thing that I think is the strongest one and the hardest one to solve is that since salmon are carnivorous, we need to feed them with fish. They've got pellets, but the main ingredients are fish meal and fish oil. In order to produce the fish meal and the fish oil, communities from West Africa and from Latin America, specifically Peru, have been deprived of their wild fish to produce fish meal and fish oil.
Fed DeGobbi: Could you just define what that is? You talked about pellet, fish meal, fish oil.
Catalina Cendoya: What are these? In the wild salmon eat other fish. So what you need to put into the pellets are fish, but they turn it into oil and into meal.
Fed DeGobbi: And these are both in the same pellet? In the same pellet, yes. So like two ingredients making the same feed.
Catalina Cendoya: Yes, among other stuff. They also add colorants and I believe soy, some chicken rests, but mainly fish meal and fish oil. And in order to produce this, what they usually do is take wild fish, from other communities. They also take it from Ireland, Norway, Sihering, Makarele in Iceland, but mainly it's brought from the North African coasts. So what we see is that we are taking protein from one place to produce the food, to produce protein in another place. We all know that that salmon is not sold in West Africa. afterwards. I mean, it's mainly sold in the northern hemisphere or in other places, but it's not protein that comes back. to the places where the fish were taken. So you've got a lot of local fisheries suffering from this in West Africa and we are producing other protein that it's not going back to them. That's one thing. And another thing is that usually it takes more than one kilo of those other fish to produce one kilo of salmon.
Fed DeGobbi: So there's a loss.
Catalina Cendoya: there's a loss. But even if there were no loss, we still have this imbalance from taking the protein from somewhere where they are not going to recover it. And we are destroying their local economies and their local fisheries. So I would also say that salmon farming is unfair, not only to nature, the environment and the local communities where they are installed, but also to these other communities who are deprived of their main livelihoods in order to be able to produce salmon.
Fed DeGobbi: And I guess what comes to mind as we're saying that is that's probably dictated by the market, as in people want to eat salmon versus smaller, less well-known fish, I guess. Is it like, you know, in an ideal world, we would eat the smaller fish.
Catalina Cendoya: Yes.
Fed DeGobbi: But I guess if we did that, I mean, if the North African communities could sell their fish directly to the West, for example, would that be better? Rather than selling it for feed?
Catalina Cendoya: This is my personal opinion, but I think what we should be doing is eating more local. So it wouldn't mean that we would eat the fish that is caught in Western Africa. They would still eat that and we would eat our own fish in an ideal world, of course. But you had a point when you mentioned that people want to eat salmon now. And it's not a coincidence, because the salmon industry, and Norway in particular, which is the greatest salmon producer worldwide, they managed to promote salmon as a healthy and sustainable product. And for people who don't know this, sushi, actually traditional sushi, is not made with salmon. But in the, during the eighties or the nineties, uh, no way started it. They called it the project Japan. And it was to, they actually went to Japan and they said, okay, if you start using our salmon in your sushi, then we will encourage people to eat more sushi. We will take it to every single place in the world.
Fed DeGobbi: That's insane. And it worked.
Catalina Cendoya: And if you think about it, it worked. 20 years ago, nobody would eat sushi in Argentina. What? What is that? Raw fish? I don't want it. Now, not only everybody eats sushi, but it has to be salmon sushi. Whenever I tell my friends, OK, if you want to eat sushi, eat another type of fish, they're like, oh, but salmon is the best one. And they need to have sushi once every two weeks. So it's something that, I mean, the consumption is rising because people want to eat more salmon. And if you tell them, hey, stop eating salmon and start eating sardines. It's not going to work directly. So that's why we are working also from the GSFR and many of our members are working on, on raising awareness among consumers. Then if you are going to stop eating salmon, then why is that? And why should you be eating other fish instead?
Fed DeGobbi: As I mentioned before we started recording, I started this podcast around seaweed. And one of the big problems for seaweed is that it's a nascent industry. It's a new ingredient and there is a massive element of educating people as to why it's such a good, nutritious, sustainable ingredient and food, right? and I've come to realize that changing people's mind is very difficult and that sometimes the educational efforts come across as being preachy and forceful, you know, whereas people tend to just do what they want to do and they don't tend to think too much about sustainability. for the most part, you know, the vast majority. So I wonder whether it's, in your experience, it's more difficult to try and make salmon farming more sustainable rather than try and convince people away from salmon.
Catalina Cendoya: That's a good question. I believe convincing people to stop eating salmon is a long term type of campaign. We are aware of that. We don't want to change people's minds from one second to the other because we know it's impossible.
Fed DeGobbi: But
Catalina Cendoya: We do believe that, I mean, there have been some innovations in the salmon industry. There are, for instance, land-based type of farms. They're in the land instead of the ocean. You can solve many of the problems there because you've got a controlled environment. You don't get sea lice. If waste is treated correctly, then it wouldn't come to the ocean afterwards. But I know they're facing also other challenges like energy use type of challenges.
Fed DeGobbi: Water use, I guess.
Catalina Cendoya: Water use. And also the feed. The feed keeps being a problem. So there have been trials to make feed more sustainable, to try black sole fly, other type of fish sourced from Argentina that are raised in a more sustainable way. But the main problem is that the scalability of it. What I believe is that if we are talking about industrial farming, we are going to have a lot of challenges that are going to be really hard to solve. So that's why what we try to do is, on the one hand, we work directly with communities fighting against the industry and trying to take them out of their waters with different type of campaigns. We've seen this happen in Argentina in 2021. Malvinas Islands in 2022. This year, in January, we took them out of the water from Washington state in the United States. So it's through other type of campaigns that not include the consumers, that include advocacy, talking to the policymakers, trying to find better solutions, looking for alternatives. So we work on that aspect. And the way we work at the GSFR is that we try to help and boost our members work there. We've got, as I said before, 115 members from a lot of different places. So we don't want to go and impose our solution. It's they know better. They know what the alternatives are in the places where they are. So we try to help them to reach their goal. But then, on the other hand, I do believe that we still need to try to, I don't know if I would say educate consumers, but at least try to make people wonder where my food comes from. Is it healthy? Is it sustainable? Is it not? And it's not only about salmon. I mean, I'm specifically focused on salmon, but it would be a good question to make regarding any product. Is this sourced from a local place? Many people in Argentina think salmon is fished in our ocean. We don't have native salmon in Argentina. It comes from Chilean farms. But if you ask, I asked a new fishmonger from my area recently, And he said, oh yeah, it comes from here. And I said, but we don't have salmon here. Well, I meant chili.
Fed DeGobbi: OK, close enough.
Catalina Cendoya: I was like, oh, OK, yeah, then it's not our waters. It's Chile and it's not wild salmon. It's farmed. So there's a difference. But if we if we don't start asking where my food comes from, what impacts does it have, then we are not going to be able to change any food system. And I know it's a long term type of campaign. But I think that we need to, it's like the cigarette, you know, 30 years ago you could smoke inside a restaurant, in an airplane even, it took a long time, but now at least we can say we're not allowed to smoke everywhere.
Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, and I wonder whether at that time, if you were a smoker in the 70s or 80s or even 90s, you know, you don't necessarily want to know how bad cigarettes are.
Catalina Cendoya: No, exactly.
Fed DeGobbi: So there is an initial push away from awareness because I kind of know that it's going to kill me but I don't want you to tell me, you know?
Catalina Cendoya: And there's also something that we usually say that it's hard for us to communicate it, I mean, because people are constantly told that what they are eating is not healthy, it's not sustainable, not only with salmon but with other fish, chicken, vegetables, dairy, gluten, I don't know, everything. So people are tired also of hearing you shouldn't be eating this. And that's also why we try to look for a positive type of narrative. And instead of don't eat this, Well, of course we encourage people not to eat salmon, but we also encourage them to eat other sources of omega-3, for instance. We do work a lot with, you were talking about the seaweed issue because people don't know about it. They don't want to eat seaweed, but it's something that we also talk about with the chefs. I mentioned they were a really key actor in Argentina. But now we also have this campaign that started in the UK with Wild Fish, a charity there. They started asking chefs to take salmon out of their tables and their menus. And what they asked them is, OK, each of you can then promote Some of them say go vegan. Some of them say source locally. And they tell about it. They say, we don't serve salmon anymore because we serve now this local fish or this local product or the seaweed dish that we are trying to make new, you know, a creative way of cooking with seaweed. So there's a lot of power there also from the chef community to be creative, to start making dishes that could become famous and to do basically what the salmon farming industry did before saying everyone should be having salmon at their menus. Well, now say you should be having all these other products that are more sustainable.
Fed DeGobbi: There are a lot of precedents for that, right? That we've seen. I lived most of my life in Europe and avocado was not a thing when I was a kid. Kale was not a thing. And these things just popped up. I want to move to the innovation side of things and change or changes that potentially you'd want to see. I wanted to ask you, because I know that in one of your campaigns, you presented the argument that salmon farming, specifically in Argentina, I think it was, would have damaged tourism. Yes. And that there were a lot of jobs in the tourism industry at stake. Therefore, there was no point adding salmon farming because it would have brought less jobs and it would have harmed those existing ones. If I remember correctly, that was essentially. Can you explain that link and the thinking behind it?
Catalina Cendoya: Yes, and you also reminded me that I didn't cover the job, the job problem. Yes. In Argentina, the salmon farms were going to be installed in this channel called the Beagle Channel, where most of Tierra del Fuego's touristic activities take part. So they would have been directly affected by salmon farms because we've got the cruises, the boats taking people to see the penguins in this small island and to this other place. They would have been affected by salmon farms.
Fed DeGobbi: meaning physically affected because they would have had to skirt around them or is it more like an aesthetic thing like as in it looks
Catalina Cendoya: Yeah, both. Yes. And as I also said before, we've got some local premium products that tourists really want to try, like the king crab. They would have also been affected by this industry. So what we did was an economical study. What we could show was that at that time in 2018, now it's even higher, We had more than 16,000 jobs tied to the touristic industry, from the tourism industry. And the salmon farming industry was offering less than 50 jobs. Then we also learned that many of those jobs, I mean positions, were going to be taken by Norwegian people and that only a few positions were going to be for Argentinian people and usually less qualified type of work. and in not the greatest conditions. When we were in Norway in June, we visited not only a facility from Leroy, one of the biggest companies in Norway, but also the aquaculture museum that is funded by the industry and the information provided there comes from the industry. And they stated that They provide 10,000 jobs, more or less, direct jobs, which accounts for 0,18% of the whole Norwegian population. And they provide only 52,000 indirect jobs, which accounts for 0,92% approximately of their population. So one anecdote that we have while we were there is that when we visited this Leroy facility, we were received by the supervisor. He was really thrilled to tell us that they now had this technology, that they had a lot of AI to see if the fish were sick or how they were doing, and that many of the aspects around the facility were controlled from a remote place, like the feeding process, and that from that remote place you could control a lot of different facilities. So he basically mentioned that in that facility there were only himself, who had also other facilities to supervise, not only that one, and then only two other people working from 8.30 in the morning to 3.30 in the afternoon. And that's all that they needed to run a facility that produces 5,000 tons a year of salmon or trout, because they alternate between salmon and trout. So what we see there is that there's not a lot of job creation, even in Norway, which is the main salmon producer in the world. And then you've got in Chile, we don't have the official numbers of the jobs created in Chile, but what you do have in Chile is a lot of bad labor conditions. Actually, from 2013 to 2025, 79 people died working at salmon facilities in Chile. So that's why when we hear that the salmon industry is coming, for instance, now to Namibia, offering a lot of jobs and well-qualified jobs, we know that's not the case. And that when you start digging a little bit further, you realize it's not that amount of jobs that stay in the country and it's not good quality type of jobs.
Fed DeGobbi: Do you find from the experience of Norway being the first and Chile being the second biggest, do you find that there is any advantage or positive in terms of money coming in due to the economy?
Catalina Cendoya: to their economy? Yes, actually Norway has 11 from all of the main salmon companies. 11 of them are Norwegian and they usually work under their own name or other names in all the different countries. So they've got not only their own revenues, but also revenues from salmon farms from different parts of the world. I wouldn't know exactly how much they bring in, but I know it's one of the most substantial industries in the country. And in Chile, I also don't know the number, but I do know it's their second industry after copper.
Fed DeGobbi: Oh, wow.
Catalina Cendoya: Yes.
Fed DeGobbi: In terms of revenue.
Catalina Cendoya: In terms of revenue, copper is the first one, and then salmon farming is the second one. And taking into account that we are in Latin America in general, we are facing a lot of challenges regarding poverty, jobs creation, and so on. it makes it even harder to fight this industry. Actually, our campaign in Chile right now is mainly to take salmon farms out of marine protected areas, because they are even operating in marine protected areas. Some of them are even territories that belong to the native peoples there. So our main campaign is to take them out of marine protected areas, because we know you can't ask a whole country to to stop one of their main industries.
Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, of course, of course. And so does that mean that potentially with some compromises there could be a coexistence of salmon farming and tourism and other activities where, for example, you have certain areas that are dedicated to salmon farming and certain areas that are protected that are dedicated to tourism. Have you seen that work anywhere where there is some sort of
Catalina Cendoya: I don't want to be the pessimistic one, but I do find it a bit hard to separate it that way that you mentioned, because, for instance, there's a place in the UK that I cannot remember the name right now, where… In Scotland. I think it was in Scotland, where whale sightseeing, that brought a lot of tourists, had to stop because those whales had migratory routes leading to salmon farms. Salmon farms had a lot of impacts in that area regarding wildlife. Whales stopped coming to that place to feed because they wouldn't find anything. So they would stop coming to that place and it would end the tourism related to whale sightseeing. So being in the ocean with all the free water flowing that we mentioned before. And something that I didn't mention is that when salmon escape, for instance, they can swim thousands and thousands of kilometers. They are a really migratory species. So they would also have a lot of impact in different places and wouldn't I mean, it depends on where we are talking about and what type of industry specifically, but recently we were asked if in Malvinas, which you would usually know them as Falkland Islands, if they would allow salmon farming, if it would affect the coasts of Tierra del Fuego, Santa Cruz and many of our provinces. And the answer is yes, because any escape from a farm in Malvinas would mean that salmon could get to Tierra del Fuego or to Santa Cruz any minute. And those, as we said before, those places don't have a top predator like salmon. So it would affect our local fisheries. It would affect our products. That would collaterally also affect our tourism because we have a lot of gastronomy tourism. So it's very hard for me to see a way of saying, okay, this could live with these other things as well. And I also keep wondering if, I mean, I understand what we said before and people want to eat salmon. So there's a lot of people saying, okay, let's do something to improve salmon farming conditions because people want to eat salmon. But at the same time, I can't help keep wondering, does it make sense? Does it make sense to farm a fish that is carnivorous, that has so many different impacts? And my answer is, OK, I hope. I know it's not going to be from one day to another that we're going to see people stopping eating salmon, but I hope that in the long term and in the future that we are able to understand that there are other types of organisms that we could be farming that are less impactful to the environment, to the communities and to a lot of everything that we've seen before.
Fed DeGobbi: Okay, I do want to go back to this in a second, but I do take your point that it's not as easy as just shutting a door. You can't compartmentalize things so much when you're out in the ocean because everything is so connected. Right, I want to talk about innovation first because I think it's a good one. It's an important one for me particularly because Through this podcast, I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs and people coming to the ocean economy, very well-intentioned, very knowledgeable, and they want to do something good. They want to introduce new ways of doing things. And so I'm conscious that a lot of people will start thinking, okay, how can we fix that? What can we do to make it better? I'm sure that somebody listening now is thinking, okay, I have this experience, I have this knowledge, I can think of a solution for that particular problem and so on. Do you think that there is any innovation such as this one or a new technology or different practices or different ways of perhaps regulating salmon farming and policing the industry that could improve the situations in those areas where salmon farming is currently happening?
Catalina Cendoya: Yes, I would say we've seen different types of innovations and different technologies. We visited a land-based farm recently. They had managed to have zero waste. They are still fighting with the feed issue. I think there are ways. of making it better. At the same time, like I said before, does it make sense to make this type of farming better instead of doing something else? One of our main partners is Yvon Chouinard from Patagonia and he said one day there's no right way to do the wrong thing So I know it sounds really dramatic, but I really do think that there can be things to be done. There can be innovations, but finding a feeling solution, which is the issue that I find harder to find a solution that could be a long-term solution and at the same time scalable. the solution would mean not to deplete other coasts, like in Western Africa or Peru, to be able to feed salmon. But you will still need protein and you will still need other fish. So they're having some trials using this pacu from Argentina, the black solier fly. But I think that if we don't get really, really innovative about that, it's sort of a very difficult area to solve. So if you ask me directly, would you use innovations and technology to be able to make this type of farming more sustainable? I would answer to put that effort and to put that energy and that funding into the alternatives that may make more sense. Why would we farm a fish that is carnivorous when we could be farming regenerative organisms like oysters, mussels, kelps, and with more technology and more means to make it also at a small scale so that it's not really It doesn't get industrial also. I recently read that if you take the food chain from the land animals as an example, the salmon could be compared to a lion because of the amount of meat that they eat and how high they are in the food chain. So if you think about it, you would be farming cows or depleting, I don't know, a place from zebras to be able to feed thousands of lions, to then be able to eat it ourselves. So you think, why not eat directly what we are feeding them? And that comes also with the solutions. If you feed them with the Paku, why not eat directly the Paku? So I feel although there is place like within every industry for innovation and to try to find and solve different aspects, I feel the huge difference with salmon is that one. And I think it's also the difference, you were also wondering about lamb animal type of farming.
Fed DeGobbi: Before we go there, I wanted to ask you whether there's anything in terms of regulation and policing that can be done differently. My background is really around compliance and enforcement around wastewater, industrial wastewater, and what I've seen there is that Industry will always try to push the envelope, will always try to make a profit, will always try to work within the rules to the very boundaries and make as much money as they can. And it really stands to the regulators, the referee, to make sure that those limits are policed and enforced. But equally, the outcome is as good as the rules. So if the rules are not good enough, then the outcome is always going to be suboptimal.
Catalina Cendoya: Yeah, there are two things regarding salmon farming that I think are important. And of course, if we could change that somehow, one thing is the standards that they need to meet. The other thing is the enforcement for them to meet those standards. So on the one hand there are different standards in the different places and different countries. There are some places around the world where they have a higher standards and that means they would need to to have almost zero sea lice in order to operate, but there are other places where those standards are really, really low, so it would mean they still have a lot of impact in the environment. But even in those places where the standards are higher, the monitoring and the enforcement of those standards is really weak. It also depends on the country and on the different places we are talking about, but In many cases, like in Iceland, the same industry is the one that reports to the government the amount of sea lice they have, the amount of mortalities, escapes. So those numbers are never really, really trusted. And the same happens with certifications that are not government, I mean from the government, but private certifications. In the case of salmon, they usually belong somehow to a salmon industry or to one or other company. So the standards they use are standards that they match. And also, if that's not the case, we end up with the same issue that they are the ones reporting to those certification schemes so that they get certified as organic. So if we somehow would be able to reinforce those standards, to monitor it, but actually monitor them. One thing that happens with fish farming in general, but I'm going to talk about salmon farming, is that you don't see it from the surface. It's not something that you can easily see, so monitoring is quite difficult for people and they usually rely on what the industry tells them. So it could be a good area to work with.
Fed DeGobbi: There's a lot of work to be done, but it is not easy work.
Catalina Cendoya: No, it's part of the work that we're also trying to do. In Iceland, many of our members work directly with policymakers, trying to reinforce all of this, monitor the farms to higher the standards, but it's also a really difficult work.
Fed DeGobbi: Okay. We talked about the alternatives a couple of times. I really wanted to go a bit more in depth on that topic because, you know, we all eat and from the point of view of the consumer, the first thing that one would think is, okay, I'm not going to eat salmon. What are the alternatives? And I would love to sort of start from other common alternatives. What I mean by that is I do completely get the idea that what's the point of eating the dragon or the lion when you could eat, you know, the herbivore. or the grass itself. However, we need to be conscious of the fact that the market is what the market is at the moment. And so if we look at salmon versus, say, chicken or beef or tuna or other forms of fin fish, farmed fin fish. Sorry, I'm giving you a lot of… What's the situation there? How does salmon compare with these common alternatives?
Catalina Cendoya: I think that salmon is usually promoted as less problematic than many of the land-farmed species. But I think that is in part because of what we said before that you cannot actually see what is happening to them. And it also doesn't take into account that it's carnivorous and it doesn't take into account that everything flows directly into the ocean. So there's an Argentinian doctor called Monica Mueller. She talks about salmon and she says it's the chicken of the sea. That's the way she describes it. And she says it's the same genetically modified monster. That's her words, not mine. And that we should be conscious about it and that we should understand that salmon is the same as chicken. So many people understand the chicken problem, the pig problem, but they don't quite get the salmon problem because it's beneath the surface. So I don't think I could say exactly because I'm not an expert on beef or chicken or how they raise it or how the technology advances have advanced there. I'm not sure. So I couldn't say, hey, eating salmon is worse than eating chicken or it's better than eating chicken or what I do know and what I can state is that they all have problems, that we should be farming them in a different way, that's what I believe, in a less industrial way, a more local way. But what I can, and sorry if I insist on this, but what I do see is that salmon is the only carnivorous here, you know, the species that we mentioned. And it's also done in the water with all of the issues that it implies. So I wouldn't tell you eat beef instead of salmon. I wouldn't do that, but I can reinforce the issues that salmon has and that others don't. Also, in case you were wondering, many people asked us Okay, should I eat wild salmon instead? Wild salmon has a really different also nutritious values comparing with farmed salmon. The problem now is that due to climate change and salmon farming in particular, they are endangered now. So I would also not recommend to eat wild salmon in particular, but I do recommend, I know it's a lot to ask for people, so what I do recommend is ask what the food you're eating is, ask what it has inside, how it's been made, where does it come from, how was it sourced, and try to eat as organic as possible. We are trying to work regarding the certifiers issues regarding salmon farming because we know many of them are certified as organic. So I couldn't tell you, okay, you can rely on the certifications and try to find organic Salmon with salmon that's not the case but I know of other type of food which is the case and certifications are better schemed. So I'm sorry not being able to say this instead of salmon. I think the, sorry, I can close with this, but it also depends on where you are. So I wouldn't be able to say, okay, it's sardine instead of, instead of salmon, because I don't know what's the case in every single place. But I think if we were able to think of all the consequences that industrial farming in general has, then we could eat more locally sourced products, sustainably sourced products. We don't need to eat meat every single day of the week at noon and at dinner. I mean, to start being more conscious and actually aware of what we are eating.
Fed DeGobbi: I think your answer at the end of the day reflects the complexity of the situation, it's not black and white. Yes. I guess if it were so easy then we would have solved it already.
Catalina Cendoya: Exactly.
Fed DeGobbi: We talked about the consumer and the market side of things. What are some of the alternatives in terms of the sustainable livelihoods and economic models that could replace salmon farming?
Catalina Cendoya: It also depends a little bit on where we are.
Fed DeGobbi: So if you want to talk about Argentina, for example.
Catalina Cendoya: Yes, we've been exploring mainly in Scotland and Argentina as well, the possibilities of boosting the oysters, mussels and seaweed industries. All of them are regenerative organisms, which means that a Apart from growing and from being able to use them for different products, they also filter the water and regenerate the ocean and the water quality. So that's mainly what we are focusing on. But for instance, in Maine, one of our main members there is working with local communities, passing ordinances from town to town to regulate aquaculture and to do it not in an intensive industrial way, but in a local way. And there they were talking about reboosting the lobster, fisheries and farming. Mainly, I think it was mussels and shellfish, if I'm not mistaken, or other type of fish, mainly that is not carnivorous.
Fed DeGobbi: And do you find that, I know it's super difficult to say, but do you find that in terms of economically that these industries could match the revenue that Salman would bring in?
Catalina Cendoya: I don't know.
Fed DeGobbi: It's difficult.
Catalina Cendoya: Yeah. No, I don't know exactly. We were actually talking about that with one of our members here in Argentina. Because in Argentina we managed to prohibit it, but now they're talking again on, hey, we need jobs and we need revenues. So what should we do about salmon farming?
Fed DeGobbi: Yeah. And it must be difficult, especially seeing your neighbor bringing in so much money.
Catalina Cendoya: Yes, it wouldn't be quite the same situation because Chile has 1,400 concessions. Is that licenses? Licenses. And we did a feasibility test and there's only from six to nine points where we could have farms.
Fed DeGobbi: So you would never be able to match.
Catalina Cendoya: No. So that's why I also think salmon farming is not always the solution and the best way in terms of revenue and jobs creation. So we are talking now about exploring these different alternatives with kelp, oysters. And we were thinking actually of doing a study of exactly what you asked. How can we compare in terms of revenue what salmon farming would bring in comparison with these other industries? But I don't know yet.
Fed DeGobbi: What about other fish? I know that now the amount of fish that is farmed worldwide has overtaken the amount of fish that is fished in the wild, which I think it's been a few years now that's the case. And so I wonder whether, obviously here in Argentina, salmon farming is banned, but is there any other species of fish that could be farmed in a more sustainable way? Do you have a view on that or any data?
Catalina Cendoya: No, I think we need to explore that. I know we farm trout in freshwater.
Fed DeGobbi: So that's open net.
Catalina Cendoya: I don't know exactly how it's done, but I know it's not in the ocean, it's in lakes and in rivers, but we need to explore a lot more. Something curious about Argentina is that we've got this huge coastline, but we don't have a really ocean economy or a relation with the ocean that it would mean to have an economy. We always have focused on land. We also have these vast extensions of land, so it was always easier to look for cows and cattle. I mean, so something that we are trying to do specifically from Por el Maram and also different NGOs that are working on this is to try to bring the ocean again to the people to start exploring different alternatives, different economies that could come from the ocean, other fish that could be produced. But I don't know exactly
Fed DeGobbi: And it sounds like it's still a nascent effort. Yes. So if you've been active as global salmon farming resistance since 2021, what have been the key milestones, both positive and negative, and what have been the main lessons learned?
Catalina Cendoya: The first key milestone was when we managed to prohibit it here in Argentina. It wasn't, as you said, the GSFR itself, but many of the members of the GSFR participated. Which then became… Exactly. Once we saw the success, what we realized and the main lesson was, although we need to involve the local communities, the international support is also really important. So something to take into account is that this industry, I mean, the salmon industry is huge. It's really powerful and it's located mostly in remote places. So you usually get the case of small groups, small communities trying to fight against this powerful, really, really huge industry. So the main lesson, and that's the whole point of this alliance, was we cannot do it alone. Of course, we need the local community to understand the risks of this so that they stand up against this industry, but the local community alone wouldn't be able to do it. So that was one of our main learnings. When we became together, we managed to keep working and it was also banned in 2022 in Malvinas, or as we said before, you would know it as the Falkland Islands. Then in British Columbia, they haven't got rid of the farms yet, but the government announced they are taking them out of the water by 2029. Then in Poros we could stop the expansion of fish farming. It's not salmon, but it's sea bass and sea green. And they are also carnivorous fish, so they asked for our help as well. And recently in 2035, well 2024, we managed to prohibit it in four towns or to regulate large-scale aquaculture, but it includes salmon farming, in five towns in Maine. And then in 2025 this year, we took salmon farms out of the water from Washington state. So those are the main milestones regarding being able to take salmon farms out of the water or to prevent them from coming. But we also have some huge successes like in Tasmania, our campaign there that has been going on. through, I mean, one of our members with other members there, and we are supporting it with grants and with some ideas, they got 72% of the population against salmon farms now and willing to do something about it. And the same in Iceland, we get 65%. The off the table campaign that I mentioned before, is now active in Australia, in Iceland, in Canada and in the US and we've got more than 500 pledges taken to take salmon farms out of their menus. So I think these are all milestones from our members specifically because as I said before we work supporting them but Something that I think is really, really important is that we need to keep working together and to keep this fight not isolated. Because every time we had a win, it was because people from different parts of the world helped there, either with a press conference with journalists talking about the impacts of salmon farming in their places, or signing petitions or asking legislators from the different places to act on it. So that's one of the main things. And the other main learning that we have is that we usually need to talk about alternatives. So we try not to say no to salmon farming and that's it. We try to say no to salmon farming, but yes to this other type of aquaculture or this other type of industries. But that depends a lot on where we are talking about. In the US, for instance, in Washington state, the main argument that worked was we're going to transition them to land-based. which I know is not ideal, we talked about it earlier, we still have a lot to solve, but it's still one step ahead of having them in the water with everything that goes in flowing directly into the ocean. We need to talk about alternatives and we need to have these questions that you asked me for solved. OK, what about the revenues? What would be a feasible alternative? What about the jobs that they create in comparison to salmon farming? So those are the discussions that we're trying to to have now in every different place.
Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, and it's so important, isn't it? Because otherwise it's very easy to just say no and it's easy to fall in the mentality of not in my backyard, you know? Yes. But then what, you know? So, no, I completely agree that it's important to look at the alternative and offer no but yes, you know?
Catalina Cendoya: Exactly. The main thing about the global salmon farming resistance is although we are global, we don't always find global alternatives or global solutions. So we usually say like it's a global problem, but it requires local solutions and locally thought alternatives and working. That's why we also work with our partners there. We don't work in a global way that we go and say, OK, get the salmon farms out, you need to do this instead, because something that works in one place won't work in another. So we need to be creative on that. We need to get informed. We need to investigate and find the better, the best solution for that place. So that's what we are trying to do.
Fed DeGobbi: I had a question about the future. I think we probably covered most of it. What would be the ideal scenario for you and this group and Polar Mar five years from now?
Catalina Cendoya: Wow. Five years from now.
Fed DeGobbi: You can do 10 if you like.
Catalina Cendoya: Ideally, we won't have salmon farms in the water anymore, but I know it's a quite optimistic view. So I'm thinking more 10, 15 years, we would like to have salmon farms.
Fed DeGobbi: That's the goal.
Catalina Cendoya: Out of the water. That's it. That's the main goal. That's our vision. That's what we work for. We work ensuring collaboration among different groups, but with one same vision, which is to take salmon farms out. of the ocean everywhere.
Fed DeGobbi: Cata, is there anything that you would like to mention in closing that we haven't brought up yet?
Catalina Cendoya: No, only that I know it's a lot to ask for people to stop eating salmon. I'm not expecting everybody hearing this podcast to stop eating salmon tomorrow, but I do encourage you to ask questions to inform you more. You can visit our website. You can, I don't know, get more informed about the impacts that it has and see if you can find alternatives in your local town to replace salmon from your menus eventually.
Fed DeGobbi: What are the best resources for people to check out your website you mentioned?
Catalina Cendoya: Yes, we've got our website, it's thegsfr.com. And in there, you will find not only information about salmon farming, but different resources that we put together, different documentaries, different books to read about the issue, different campaigns that were made, the off the table campaign website as well. So you can have a look, see what the chefs had to say from a gastronomy perspective about this. And we also have our social media, of course.
Fed DeGobbi: Excellent. We'll put all of that in the show notes. Thanks so much for having me and for your honesty in tackling these difficult topics. Really appreciate it.
Catalina Cendoya: Thank you. Thank you for having me here.