Post by Hoppy on Mar 23, 2006 21:09:01 GMT -1
The Salmon Farm Protest Group
An ruda na bo bhroin, cha bhi e na do thmhnadh
‘That which you have wasted will not be there for future generations’
Organic salmon mumbo-jumbo
The Soil Association, in collaboration with Marine Stewardship Council, supermarket giant Waitrose and fish farmer Aquascot, has launched a “partnership to develop certified sustainable sources of fish meal and oil for organic farmed fish diets”.
The term ‘organic’ suggests that fish meal and oil used in food fed to farm fish is sourced from sustainable populations of wild fish; sandeels, pout, capelin, sardines and pilchards and other species at the base of the food chain.
But the exploitation of these small fish for the growing needs of aquaculture has had an enormous and detrimental impact on wild fish species and upon other species, such as the sea birds, that rely on them for sustenance.
Bruce Sandison, chairman of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said: “Until recently, up to 1 million tonnes of sandeels were taken from the North Sea each year for fish meal and oil; depriving endangered species of wild fish, such as cod, of their natural diet. It takes 3 tonnes of wild fish to produce 1 tonne of farm salmon”.
Sandison continued, “The contaminants in the small fish used to produce fish meal and oil from North Sea species ends up in farm fish, organic or otherwise, and have earned Scottish farmed salmon the reputation of allegedly being the most PCB and dioxin contaminated farmed fish in the world.”
As salmon farmers search for a more abundant and less contaminated source of fish meal and oil, they are turning to Chile and Peru. But it is unlikely that these fisheries will be sustainable, given that some 6 million tonnes of base-of-the-food-chain species there are being taken each year to make into fish meal and oil.
Chilean salmon farmers (the largest of which is Norwegian-owned Marine Harvest) produce 600,000 tonnes of fish each year and, based upon industry figures, it requires nearly 10 tonnes of pelagic fish to produce 1 tonne of farmed salmon.
Sandison commented, “There is nothing ‘organic’ about salmon farming. A wild salmon at the age of eighteen months is about six inches in length and still in its natal stream. By that time, a farmed salmon, bog-standard or so-called organic, has already been hatched, matched and despatched to the supermarket shelf.”
He concluded, “If the Soil Association wants to retain public confidence, then they must show that they are independent. Personally, I am concerned by the fact that their Scottish Director, Mr Hugh Raven, is also a director of Ardtornish Estate in Argyll; an estate that has had a near-two-decade relationship with fish farming.”
See also: www.salmonfarmmonitor.org
An ruda na bo bhroin, cha bhi e na do thmhnadh
‘That which you have wasted will not be there for future generations’
Organic salmon mumbo-jumbo
The Soil Association, in collaboration with Marine Stewardship Council, supermarket giant Waitrose and fish farmer Aquascot, has launched a “partnership to develop certified sustainable sources of fish meal and oil for organic farmed fish diets”.
The term ‘organic’ suggests that fish meal and oil used in food fed to farm fish is sourced from sustainable populations of wild fish; sandeels, pout, capelin, sardines and pilchards and other species at the base of the food chain.
But the exploitation of these small fish for the growing needs of aquaculture has had an enormous and detrimental impact on wild fish species and upon other species, such as the sea birds, that rely on them for sustenance.
Bruce Sandison, chairman of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said: “Until recently, up to 1 million tonnes of sandeels were taken from the North Sea each year for fish meal and oil; depriving endangered species of wild fish, such as cod, of their natural diet. It takes 3 tonnes of wild fish to produce 1 tonne of farm salmon”.
Sandison continued, “The contaminants in the small fish used to produce fish meal and oil from North Sea species ends up in farm fish, organic or otherwise, and have earned Scottish farmed salmon the reputation of allegedly being the most PCB and dioxin contaminated farmed fish in the world.”
As salmon farmers search for a more abundant and less contaminated source of fish meal and oil, they are turning to Chile and Peru. But it is unlikely that these fisheries will be sustainable, given that some 6 million tonnes of base-of-the-food-chain species there are being taken each year to make into fish meal and oil.
Chilean salmon farmers (the largest of which is Norwegian-owned Marine Harvest) produce 600,000 tonnes of fish each year and, based upon industry figures, it requires nearly 10 tonnes of pelagic fish to produce 1 tonne of farmed salmon.
Sandison commented, “There is nothing ‘organic’ about salmon farming. A wild salmon at the age of eighteen months is about six inches in length and still in its natal stream. By that time, a farmed salmon, bog-standard or so-called organic, has already been hatched, matched and despatched to the supermarket shelf.”
He concluded, “If the Soil Association wants to retain public confidence, then they must show that they are independent. Personally, I am concerned by the fact that their Scottish Director, Mr Hugh Raven, is also a director of Ardtornish Estate in Argyll; an estate that has had a near-two-decade relationship with fish farming.”
See also: www.salmonfarmmonitor.org