Veta La Palma

Veta La Palma takes sustainable fish farming to a whole new level. In 1982, the company bought up marshlands adjacent to the Guadalquivir River in Southern Spain. The land had been drained to raise cattle, which destroyed the natural habitat and decimated the local bird population. Veta La Palma re-flooded the area and went to work restoring the wetlands.

Now, the company’s aquaculture farm uses natural filtration to clean the water, and encourages biodiversity — even that of predators. “They take about 20 percent of our annual yield,” farmer and biologist Miguel Medialdea looking over a bird scooped up a sea bass. “But that just shows the whole system is working.”

By working closely with the natural ecosystem, Veta la Palma avoids many of the pitfalls of conventional, intensive fish farming. We believe that our fish farm could be a useful model for future plans to regenerate the disrupted marshland areas and coastal wetlands of Spain and Atlantic Europe. At Veta la Palma we are not only making consumption and conservation compatible—we are moving toward a new outlook on conservation and development where the careful use of natural resources, such as water and land, can generate economic profits while enhancing a wide range of environmental values.