Last Sunday, you published three stories about the Scottish salmon farming industry by environment editor Rob Edwards.
One concerned leaked emails in which a fish-farming company dismissed people trying to protect their local environment as "a nest of vipers" (Fish farm developers brand loch protesters 'a nest of vipers', News, January 13). The second covered complaints made to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator over links between the industry and a charity conducting a Government-funded study into one of the environmental impacts of salmon farms. The third story told of complications over a Freedom of Information ruling requiring the Scottish Government to release information on where and when fish farmers killed seals under the Government seal shooting licensing scheme.
These stories highlight the fact that the Scottish Government does not control the fish farming industry in Scotland. After Norway gave the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident, the Chinese government banned the import of salmon from Norway and, despite most of our salmon farms being Norwegian-owned, started buying from Scotland instead. This will double or treble output in the next two or three years.
Instead of putting a moratorium on this rapid expansion until the ecological impact is assessed, Scottish Government ministers have acted like sales reps. I hope they are getting commission from the Norwegian government, which will no doubt benefit through taxes levelled on the profits the Norwegian farm owners will make. We should not have to rely on whistleblowers and quangos to police salmon farmers and protect our environment. Those are jobs we elect politicians to do.
John F Robins
Save Our Seals Fund
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