THE SCOTSMANTHURSDAY 2ND SEPTEMBER 1999
BY JOHN ROSS
END TO FISH FARM GROWTH DEMANDED BY CAMPAIGNERS
- Environment group claims lack of resources and scientific understanding has led to crisis
Campaigners have called on the government to halt the growth in the salmon farming industry while research is being carried out into allegations that it is having a harmful effect on the environment. Scottish Environment LINK, an umbrella group of 39 voluntary organisations, claims the fear over the impact of fish farming has reached a crisis point. Peter Pollard, the Scottish Wildlife Trust's water environment officer and chair of LINK's fish farming task-force, wants John Home Robertson, the rural affairs minister, to issue a moratorium on expanding the industry and introduce legislation to provide better regulation. He is also seeking emergency measures to protect stocks of wild salmon and trout. Among the concerns raised are fears about the possible transfer of diseases to wild fish and alleged genetic contamination of the wild stock by escaped farmed fish; the use of unlicensed chemicals and the cumulative impact of sea lice treatments.
The move follows a paper delivered by Prof David Mackay, director of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency North Region, to the Aquaculture Europe 99 conference in Norway which suggested the full environmental impact of the industry had not been assessed. Mr Pollard said: 'Scotland's environmental bodies have long been concerned about inadequacies in the regulation of marine salmon farming. This has now reached crisis point with the quality of our coastal environment already damaged and under threat from the expanding fish farming industry. The crisis has already been publicly conceded by SEPA which claims it does not have the powers, resources or scientific understanding to protect the environment from the impact of salmon farming.'
He said the present situation is bad for the environment, the people whose livelihoods depend on it and also the industry itself which needs a quality image to compete in a world market. It is the latest controversy surrounding the £275 million fish farming industry which employs 6,300 at 340 sites across the Highlands and Islands and helps to sustain many fragile rural economies. Salmon farming has been cited as a major reason for the dramatic decline in wild salmon and trout, resulting in Scotland missing out on hundreds of millions of pounds from tourism. The finger has also been pointed at the industry following the ban on scallop fishing with some fishermen believing pollution from farms has exacerbated the production of naturally occurring toxic algae. At the same time fish farmers are having to deal with its own crisis, the infectious salmon anaemia disease (ISA) which has cost 150 jobs and led to millions of pounds of stock being destroyed.
Peter Pollard addded: 'The urgency of the situation cannot be over-emphasised. The collapse of sea trout in many west coast rivers and the serious decline in salmon because of sea lice transferred from fish farms, for example, has severe and immediate implications not only for the conservation of the fish populations concerned but also for the ecosystems and the economies like angling which depend upon them.' Yesterday William Crowe, chief executive of the Scottish Salmon Growers Association, said the comments by LINK constitute an attack on SEPA. He said: 'Salmon farmers are required to pay substantial fees to SEPA for monitoring sites and we expect SEPA to conduct their regulatory functions correctly and in a professional manner'. He said much of the debate on fish farms was based on non-scientific viewpoints and added:
'LINK provides no evidence behind the conjecture and supposition to which salmon farming has been subjected to by publicity-seeking opponents of the industry. The Scottish industry operates to high standards with an independently monitored quality scheme and is currently developing an environmental monitoring (sic) to the international standard'.
PRIVATE EYE
FRIDAY 3RD SEPTEMBER
DOWN ON THE FISH FARM
Professor David Mackay, north region director of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, claims that his political masters are 'misleading people'. He says that current fish farm practices are causing environmental damage which is reaching 'near crisis levels'. He also blames salmon farms for the catastrophic decline in West Highland wild fish stocks. Why should Prof. Mackay chose to speak out now, given that his quango and predecessor bodies have authorised the dumping of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of untreated fish farm sludge into the sea for more than 25 years? One reason might be that the sludge is about to hit the fan. A legal challenge is being mounted by representatives of 150,000 UK sport anglers, alleging that Sepa has been negligent in its duty to protect Scotland's wild fish from disease and pollution from salmon farms.
A possible Sepa defence against this accusation could be: 'Nothing to do with us. We only follow orders. Anyway, Prof. Mackay warned the Government about this last August'. The prof dropped his bombshell in Norway at an international fish farm conference. He particularly accused the Scottish Executive (SE) of being less than frank about the current outbreak of amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP). The outbreak, in its second month, now covers 10,000 square miles of Scottish waters.
THE SCOTSMAN
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 2ND 1999
BY CHRISTOPHER CAIRNS
TIME FOR RESEARCH, FOR EVERYONE'S SAKE
- Commentary
For those with long memories there will be more than a touch of deja vu about the efforts of Scottish Environment LINK to bring salmon farming to account. In particular, the demand for more research into the environmental impact of the industry is a familiar one - it was made, in fact, by the same organisation almost 12 years ago and has been repeated by others almost every year since. Scottish Environment LINK is not an organisation which appears much in the public consciousness. Like all other umbrella bodies, it tends to spend a great deal of its time keeping each of its constituent parts happy with whatever it is engaged in, and less on making headlines. When it does speak with one voice, however, it demands attention.
This is a grouping of every major environment, wildlife and conservation body in the country, representing paid-up volunteers and supporters numbered in hundreds of thousands. Its call for a moratorium on salmon farming development and the urgent commissioning of research echoes the self-same message from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scotland's government-appointed environmental guardian. And what of the industry itself? Apart from some concern that a high-profile investigation into the health of intensive fish farming could lead to an image problem for the Scottish product in the highly competitive international market, the farmers themselves do not have a serious problem with the idea.
Leading industry figures have repeatedly expressed their support for any research into best environmental practice. All they ask is for is a halt to the growing hysteria which threatens to blame salmon farms for every ill visited upon Scotland's lochs and rivers. Apart from the recently commissioned work on the environmental impacts of sea lice treatments and some work on the biology of wild fish stocks by the Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory at Faskally, not nearly enough has been done. The Scottish Executive has established a tripartite working group involving the industry, angling and conservation interests which has looked at 'areas of common interest'. This does not come near the kind of seminal scientific analysis of the problems that is needed.
During a 15-year period when hundreds of fish farms were given the green light by desk-bound Crown Estate Commissioners armed with little more than an OS map, the level of scientific understanding of this, Scotland's fastest growing industry, has simply not kep pace. Past administrations have been understandably quick to defend an industry which is of obvious importance to the economies of remote and fragile communities. However, it has long since passed the point when that the industry - which must prove to be sustainable in the long term - is best served by hiding behind ignorance. Scotland's new government has an opportunity finally to lift the lid on fish farming's environmental impact, a job which will take many years and millions of pounds to complete. Yet surely Scotland's environment, not to mention the thousands who rely on salmon farming for their livelihoods and thousands more who rely on tourism and other industries at least as vital to the Highlands, is worthy of such an effort.