Plans for the Republic of Ireland’s biggest salmon farm have sparked a furious dispute, with a group of islanders in one of Europe’s most remote communities leading the campaign against it.
The Aran Islands shield Galway Bay from the wild Atlantic beyond - a key reason its waters have been chosen as the proposed site for the country’s biggest salmon farm by the sea fisheries state agency (BIM).
The plan to double the farmed-salmon output of 15,000 metric tons a year pits those who say it is an under-developed resource badly needed in recession against those arguing it threatens the environment and wild salmon and sea trout stocks.
