WWF Greenwashes Marine Harvest!

BREAKING NEWS: 

The phrase "blood money" immediately leaps to mind when hearing the news that WWF Scotland is jumping into bed with Marine Harvest to promote "responsibly" farmed salmon via certification with the Aquaculture Stewardship Council. 

"WWF has blood on their hands by promoting lethally farmed Scottish salmon," said Don Staniford of the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture in reaction.  "The trigger-happy panda should hang its head in shame for condoning the killing of marine mammals.  Rewarding Marine Harvest for waste pollution, use of toxic chemicals, sea lice infestation and the shooting of seals leaves a bad taste in the mouth - just like cheap and nasty Scottish farmed salmon.  Consumers should do the responsible thing and boycott so-called 'responsibly' farmed salmon."   

 

Read more on how WWF is sanctioning the killing of marine mammals via "The Killer Panda"

 

Far from being "responsible", "environmental" or "sustainable" the so-called ''Responsible Salmon Aquaculture Standards' published by WWF in June 2012 - and now being used by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council to certify farmed salmon - shockingly permit:

- waste pollution and chemical contamination
- killing of wildlife including marine mammals
- sea lice infestation and the spread of infectious diseases
- the farming of non-native species
- escapes
- unsustainable and non-certified fish feed
- transgenic plants including GM soya in feed
- copper-treated nets and biocides
- use of antibiotics
- use of toxic chemicals such as cypermethrin and emamectin benzoate
- mortality rates of 20%
- deaths of workers

 

The standard actually specifies the number of "lethal incidents" permitted - with nine animals including two marine mammals such as seals or sea lions allowed to be killed!

 

Sign the petition asking WWF and the ASC to stop the killing online here!

 

The shameful standard also allows salmon farmers to drug unhealthy farmed salmon with up to three doses of antibiotics!!! 

 

How irresponsible of the ASC and WWF to be advocating the use of antibiotics!  

 

The salmon farming sector needs to book itself into re-hab not be praised for taking drugs!

 

Guy Linley-Adams, solicitor to the Salmon & Trout Association's Aquaculture Campaign was upbeat in his assessment: "In order to receive this certification, Marine Harvest will have to publish weekly, farm-specific sea lice data, individually for each of their farms," he said reacting to the news in For Argyll (20 May).  "This is what the S&TAS has called for for many years and ensures producers stand by their environmental obligations.  For this reason we do welcome Marine Harvest’s decision and hope all other fish farms will follow its lead."

 

WWF Scotland brazenly praised the salmon standards when they were published in June 2012.

 

Marine Harvest Scotland is desperately trying to re-brand itself as green and clean after a damning expose in The Guardian newspaper earlier this month. 

Marine Harvest, the world's largest salmon farming company, is running into the open arms of the world's most toxic greenwasher in the fluffy and cuddly shape of WWF aka 'Branda the Panda'. 

Greenpeace’s ‘Green Action’ campaign criticised WWF and Marine Harvest for their toxic relationship back in 2010.

 

WWF's dirty deal with Marine Harvest was exposed in the 2010 documentary "Salmonopoly" from award-winning filmmaker Wilfried Huismann. 

 

WWF's Maren Esmark (now the head of Friends of the Earth Norway) admitted that Marine Harvest were paying WWF Norway 800,000 Norwegian Kroner ($140,000 Canadian Dollars or £90,000) per year as blood money.  

Huismann went on to make "Silence of the Pandas" in 2012 - a film exposing WWF's role in deforestation and genetic engineering.

 

WWF and Marine Harvest were also criticised at a meeting of the Salmon Aquaculture Dialogue in Bergen in 2009 when the Green Warriors of Norway unveiled a 'Skin the Corrupt Panda' banner. 

“There is no right way to do something wrong,” said Green Warriors' leader Kurt Oddekalv. 

Read more details via "Abominable Salmon Council - Buyer Beware!"

 

The term 'Panda Porn' was coined over a decade ago by Jeffrey St. Clair in Counter Punch magazine where WWF were branded "little more than the well-paid zombies of the corporations they have gotten into bed with". 

Since then, WWF has jumped into bed with a whole whorehouse of corporations including Monsanto.

Read more via "Shock documentary: WWF and industry - The Pact with the Panda"

 

In 2008, WWF Norway announced a 'historic partnership' with Marine Harvest to brand the salmon farming giant as "sustainable" and "environmental". 

 

In February 2013, WWF's aquaculture director Jose Villalon announced he was jumping ship to work for salmon feed giant (and former Marine Harvest owner) Nutreco.

Villalon is currently vice president and managing director of WWF’s aquaculture program, and chairman of the board of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) - which also includes Marine Harvest, Nutreco and Pew Environment Group consultant Hank Cauley. 

 

Hank Cauley, currently serving on the ASC Supervisory Board, let the disease-ridden farmed salmon slip out of the bag in 2010 when he advised Pew Environment Group (where he works as a ‘Senior Officer’): 

Hank Cauley also admitted in 2009 in an email to Pew Charitable Trusts:

In another email sent to the Pew Environment Group in April 2010, the ASC board member admitted that: “if you want to have a certification program for aquaculture then salmon is key.”  In January 2009 he further suggested that: “it’s smoke and mirrors if it doesn't make sense economically.”  

 

Mr. Cauley’s rabid support for the ASC landed him in hot water last year when all reference to the Pew Environment Group was removed from the ASC web-site. 

[Photo: Hank Cauley promoting the ASC in 2011 at the Seafood Summit in Vancouver]

 

Read more via ‘Pew Environment Group “distancing” itself from ASC? Clarification about ASC Board membership coming’

 

Pew Environment Group’s Managing Director Joshua Reichert was forced to state publicly in February 2011 that: “The Pew Environment Group has no position regarding the ASC, either pro or con.”  

Read more via "Panda Porn: WWF Leaps Into Bed With Salmon Giant Nutreco" and "Pepé Le Pew Loves Farmed Salmon!"

 

The branding of farmed salmon by WWF and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council as "sustainable" and "responsible" mirrors the shameless attempts by groups such as the Soil Association, the Organic Food Federation and Naturland to greenwash farmed salmon as "organic".  

Read more via "Organic Scamon: The Greenwashing of Toxic Farmed Salmon"

 

Don't buy WWF's blatant greenwashing of Marine Harvest and don't buy the ASC's "sustainable" and "responsible" farmed salmon! 

 

Watch a video on "Marine Harvest's Slaughter of Seals in Loch Alsh, Scotland"

 

Scepticism of WWF’s farmed salmon standards and the ASC’s certification of farmed salmon is simmering away.  A petition via the organization ‘Change’, signed by over 2,500 people from all over the world, includes:

“Please help stop farmed salmon being certified as ‘sustainable’, ‘environmental’ and ‘responsible’. WWF, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and Marine Harvest (the largest salmon farming company in the world) are attempting to green-wash salmon farming via 'Standards for Responsible Aquaculture'.  However these standards fail to address welfare and food safety issues and allow for the use of toxic chemicals, antibiotics, unsustainable feed, escapes, non-native species, GM feed and the killing of marine mammals.”

 

Sign the petition online via ‘Stop the Certification of Farmed Salmon as ‘Sustainable’ and ‘Responsible’’

 Read more details via "Abominable Salmon Council - Buyer Beware!"