From 16 Oct 2021: “Lies and torture”
“Food for happy kindergarten children or dead fjords and torture methods? The book about farmed salmon is excellent critical journalism.
The new fish starts with the pioneer time of farmed salmon and ends in political quotes that have no roots in reality.”
“What are they talking about when they talk about farmed fish? Some people talk about feeding those who are hungry in the world with healthy food, they talk about jobs in the countryside, happy children in kindergartens, scientific controversy, coastal culture and the new oil.
Others talk about dead fjords, heavy metals, manipulation of genetic material, destruction of rainforests, tax evasion, overfishing in developing countries and legalized torture in the fight against salmon lice.
Both sides can then not be completely right? Most of us who listen are probably left with far more questions than answers. We need facts.
This is where Simen Sætre and Kjetil Østli come in. They give us a good dose of this, in an important and challenging book.
"The New Fish" draws a comprehensive map that begins in the pioneer era. We meet researchers who worked to breed a salmon strain that grows fast, becomes fat and tender and is able to live in a cramped environment. At the same time, pioneers on the coast were in the process of building facilities for farming, preferably with a touch of Reodor Felgen. Eventually, investors moved in.
The book moves over large geographical distances - all the way to outposts where the Norwegian model for intensive aquaculture has been implemented. In Chile and Canada, the model has aroused enthusiasm in the industry and protests from indigenous peoples.
The authors alternate between melancholy idyll with childhood memories from salmon fishing when nature was allowed to be more at peace, to interviews with actors and thorough reviews of rhetorical proposals from politicians, industry people and influencers of various kinds
The trace of the many mergers and acquisitions that have resulted in giant, global billion-dollar machines could easily have been clearer - perhaps in tables.
The text is a braid of different threads. In some parts, this may be perceived as a little too changeable, but at the end of the reading, it constitutes solid doses of knowledge, reflection and challenges
What is behind many of the statements that are constantly quoted? The authors' investigations of these are excellent critical journalism. Here the book keeps a just right toxic tone. Minister of Fisheries Per Sandberg is quoted as saying to NRK: "The UN has ordered Norway […] to produce more seafood for the world's population". When did the UN do that? The authors are looking for:
«A quick check shows that this ocean panel does not exist in the UN system. The UN has no ocean panel. When we contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we learn that there is a misunderstanding with the UN. The Marine Panel consists of heads of state invited by Norway. Many of them come from salmon countries. The panel is chaired by Prime Minister Erna Solberg, herself a champion of farming and the sister of Marit Solberg, who was director of Mowi for many years. UN allegations fall. "
This is the real strength of the book. Bit by bit, the rhetorical structure that surrounds the aquaculture industry is reviewed and lies uncovered. It is a tough porridge that radically polarizes our perception of the industry.
On the one hand, we have "advocates" in the industry and in politics, armed with words of praise about jobs, sustainability and coastal culture when they reprimand critical researchers.
On the other hand, we have those who give us important objections about unclear adjustments of the danger limits for toxins, frightening numbers of salmon lice, death rates in the cages and the actual, unintended effects of the methods to de-lice.
The book's interpretation of how salmon lice work is exciting. They are not lice, but crustaceans, "crustaceans". Their enormous reproductive ability is related to the difficulty the species has in moving to a new host fish - they have to jump from one salmon to another when it swims past nearby.
And this is very rarely successful in the wild sea, while it happens all the time when the fish are close together in the cages. The conditions for salmon lice are optimal there, and no one seems to have thought about this before the catastrophic development was a fact.
Had farming been governed by the precautionary principle, production might not have multiplied before such a mechanism had been clarified. But the industry is having a bad time. Remember that the UN has ordered Norway to double its production! Wasn't that so?
The book strives to be balanced and allow different arguments to fit. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the authors are deeply skeptical of the industry and have an urgent errand. The questions they ask will hopefully provoke debate, but they should also result in a broad, public hearing in which all stakeholders speak on neutral grounds.
For a layman - and probably also for politicians - it is difficult to know what to believe in such a polarized and bitter rhetorical landscape. But when it's like that, there must be many things that cannot stand the light of day. Get them out!”