For Immediate Release
May 14, 2009

CONTACT:
Fiona Cameron, 07771 577686

Scottish sustainable aquaculture campaigner to join delegation to Norway

PR consultant Fiona Cameron, who campaigns on behalf of the Sea Trout Group to mitigate the damage which salmon farming can cause to Scotland’s wild sea trout populations, will travel to Norway Oslo next week with colleagues from similar wild fish advocacy groups from all over the world.

While there, Fiona will participate in meetings with representatives of Norwegian anglers and river owners, as well as environmental NGOs, politicians, salmon industry representatives and other stakeholders.

The trip is being co-ordinated by the Pure Salmon Campaign, which is a shareholder in two of the world’s largest salmon farming companies, Cermaq and Marine Harvest, and attends the AGMs of both companies in Oslo each May.

“I will be joining representatives from the wild salmonid and environmental  lobbies from Ireland, Canada, Chile, the US and Norway itself,” said Fiona. “It’s vital that we present a united front in calling for the global salmon farming industry to show greater commitment to its environmental stewardship responsibilities.

“In Scotland, we don’t face some of the problems which our colleagues in Chile currently face.   However, the recent ISA outbreak in Shetland has shown that the Scottish industry is in danger of becoming too complacent over best practice.  The fact that the disease was detected by fish health inspectors who were investigating massive sea lice infestations on farmed fish speaks volumes.  The farms where ISA has been detected were not run by smaller, less well-funded operators. They belong to large global companies such as Hjaltland (owned by Greig Seafood ASA of Norway) and Scottish Sea Farms (owned by Norwegian operators Salmar and Leroy).  And of course, any signs that the industry is losing control of keeping down sea lice numbers represent an increased threat to our already-fragile stocks of sea trout in the fish farming areas. Because the fish in farm cages outnumber our wild salmonids so overwhelmingly, it’s essential that they control lice even more effectively going forward, rather than allowing numbers to creep up again.”

“We believe that the problems facing Chile’s salmon industry at the moment, and the losses which the industry world-wide is seeing due to disease, sea lice infestation and escapes, reflect how difficult it is to run a truly sustainable salmon farming industry in open net pens in the marine environment. The industry is also spending huge sums each year on what is essentially fire-fighting. The only way in which this industry can claim to be running in a truly sustainable way is by moving to closed containment facilities. There’s been a good deal of work in recent years on producing commercially viable floating closed containment cages. We believe it’s time for the Scottish salmon industry to set an example of true corporate environmental stewardship, and move rapidly towards using such technologies,” added Sea Trout Group chairman Eric Mcvicar.

Brian Fraser, a ghillie from Wester Ross, who has seen at first hand how the decimation of west coast sea trout stocks has affected employment in the angling and angling tourism sectors, will also visit Oslo with the Pure Salmon delegation, to share his first-hand observations on the decline of west coast sea trout.

“We have the odd year with good runs of salmon, but the sea trout population has never recovered,” said Brian. “What makes it so sad is that many jobs have gone with the fish - jobs on the rivers, lochs and hotels, and with them the back up industries which supported them.  In some areas on the west coast many more jobs have been lost than have been gained from fish farming, but I believe there is room for us all if only fish farm companies were to adopt  closed containment cages, which would benefit everyone.”

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