Fishing for action
I was angered to read about the government’s continued failure to take meaningful action to restore and protect nature, notably the “chronic decline in species abundance” observed by the Office for Environmental Protection.
This rapid decline in abundance is clear for fisheries: wild Scottish salmon are at critically low levels. The threat to this species from the ever-growing farmed salmon industry has been explicitly recognised by the Scottish government –from sea lice, disease and pollution to interbreeding. Similarly, the International Union for Conservation of Nature identifies farmed salmon as one of the threats to wild salmon specifically due to pathogens and interbreeding.
Moreover, the farmed salmon industry also threatens wild fish populations in other parts of the globe. Feedback’s research shows that the production of 179,000 tonnes of Scottish Atlantic salmon requires 460,000 tonnes of wild-caught fish for feed, equal to the amount of fish consumed by the UK population every year – 76 per cent of these feed fish are edible by humans. While Scottish feed supply chains are wreathed in mystery, trade and industry data shows that the majority of fish used in feed by global aquafeed companies originate in food-insecure countries such as Peru and Mauritania. Most of the carbon
emissions associated with these farms relate to their feed sourcing.
Despite this and its stated aim to “ensure the UK has long-term, sustainable, and profitable fisheries and aquaculture”, the government’s recent joint fisheries statement fails to outline how it will address these issues and protect wild fish from the growing fish farming sector. It furthermore fails to include anything meaningful in terms of mitigating climate change, one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss above and below the water today. We have therefore written to the UK government in view of launching legal proceedings for its failure to regulate the farmed salmon industry. The government must be held to account before we lose precious fish species forever.
Christina O’Sullivan London
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