View from the hut
Can valuable research outpace increasing pollution? asks Dani Morey
I’D BEEN HOPING TO HANG MY Christmas stocking a little early this year. Yes, I know it’s not even December, but I was trying to be optimistic that, at least in a fish conservation sense, we might have had some decent deliveries in time. Then came the crashing news from Wild Fish that proposed new regulations to protect wild salmon from sea-lice won’t initially apply to any one of the 200-plus salmon farms currently operating in Scotland.
Indeed, it seems to not apply to any area of the industry that it’s supposed to be regulating, not even the 21 existing farms identified as “high risk” by SEPA, an organisation that intriguingly calls itself the Scottish “Environment Protection” Agency. It seems to be more and more selective of the environments it deems worthy of protection.
A third of the salmon farming industry is based in Orkney and Shetland, areas that will not be covered by the proposed regulations. Salmon rivers where populations have previously existed are also exempt, which surely breaches the Water Framework Directive, something that is supposed to focus on ensuring sufficient water quality and volume to support and sustain wildlife. Given the amount of known pollution from aquaculture, how can this be ignored?
Furthermore, SEPA is handing the salmon farming industry the opportunity to self-regulate and protect its own interests by allowing it to create a refined model to show any new planned farms will not impact on wild fish populations. SEPA has also stated it is not planning to reduce permitted farm biomass or rescind licences even if regulations are breached. It all beggars belief.
Hunting around for better news, I stumbled upon the initial findings of the Laxford Project, a partnership between the Atlantic Salmon Trust and Reay Forest Estate in northwest Scotland seeking to restore salmon and sea-trout numbers through what it calls
“an ecosystem approach”. In layman’s terms, they’re looking at wider environment issues, things such as loss of riparian woodlands, historical channel realignment, fish health, the impact of breeding with escaped farmed fish, predation and pressures from non-native species. Offshore renewable energy sources and expansion of offshore aquaculture are also included.
The ten-year proje
