Scotland's Salmon Sell-Outs

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!"

 

Scottish Salmon's 'Silent Spring of the Sea'

Cartoonist Adrian Raeside nailed it back in 2002 with his cartoon (above) of a chemically embalmed farmed salmon checking into the Betty Ford Clinic for Substance Abuse.   Over a decade later the salmon farming industry's addiction to toxic chemicals, sea lice 'medicines', antibiotics, artificial colourings and other drugs is leaving an indelible stain upon the sea. 

 

If 'Silent Spring' author Rachel Carson was alive today she would be shocked at how the salmon farming industry is using such toxic chemicals in the sea (read more via "Silent Spring of the Sea").   No more so than in Scotland where new data from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) reveals how Scottish salmon farms are contaminating the sea-bed with a lethal cocktail of pesticides.  The Sunday Herald reported today (5 May) an exclusive from award-winning journalist Rob Edwards:

 

Read online via "Revealed: the dirty dozen salmon farms that contaminate lochs with pesticides" 

This is not the first time that Rob Edwards has revealed the pollution problem of Scotland's toxic salmon farms.  "They look like pristine, unpolluted beauty spots - but in fact they are contaminated with toxic pesticides," wrote Edwards in 2011.  "The sea lochs that line Scotland’s north west coast, famed for their natural splendour, are polluted by poisonous chemicals used by fish farms, surveys by the Scottish government’s green watchdog have revealed."

Scottish salmon farming has a growing problem with chemical addiction.   Last year, FishyLeaks revealed that the use of toxic chemicals on Scottish salmon farms more than doubled between 2008 and 2011 and has increased twelve-fold since 2005. 

Read exclusively in The Guardian newspaper via “Scottish fish farmers use record amounts of parasite pesticides” and “Chemicals to control salmon parasites”.

 

According to data obtained via Freedom of Information from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), the ‘Filthy Five’ users of toxic chemicals were Marine Harvest, Scottish Salmon Company (Lighthouse Caledonia), Scottish Sea Farms (Leroy/SalMar), Hjaltland Seafarms (Grieg) and Loch Duart.  The ‘Dirty Dozen’ sites using Azamethiphos, Cypermethrin, Deltamethrin, Emamectin benzoate and Teflubenzuron are named for the first time – including Special Areas of Conservation such as Loch Roag and Loch Laxford.

 

Chemical resistance means that a cocktail of five toxic pesticides are now used to kill Scotland’s plague of ‘super-lice’.  Almost twice every day for the last four years (2008-2011), chemicals known to be lethal to lobsters and other shellfish were used on salmon farms in Scotland.  Chemicals were used 2,756 times including Emamectin (1,028); Deltamethrin (914); Azamethiphos (487); Cypermethrin (315) and Teflubenzuron (12).

 

The news comes in the wake of a Veterinary Residues Committee report detailing contamination in Scottish farmed salmon with the toxic pesticide Emamectin.  In June 2012, officers from Marine Scotland were charged with carrying out a follow up investigation.  Data obtained via FOI reveals that since 2005 Marine Harvest, Scottish Sea Farms, Skelda Salmon and the Scottish Salmon Company have all been involved in contamination cases.  

For more information read the ‘Media Backgrounder: Chemical Culture in Scotland’ and read 'FishyLeaks: Scotland's Toxic Toilets Named & Shamed!' 

 

Last year, the Salmon & Trout Association also revealed that levels of seabed pollution at almost two thirds of Scottish marine salmon farms were either ‘unsatisfactory’ or ‘borderline’, according to SEPA’s own categorisation. 

The study reviewed 311 reports of seabed self-monitoring by farms between 2009 and March 2012. Of these 137 (44%) were deemed by SEPA to be “unsatisfactory” (“beyond the assimilative capacity of the local environment”), 64 (21%) were “borderline” (“close to having an unsustainable impact”) and only 106 (34%) were “satisfactory”.

Hughie Campbell-Adamson, Chairman of S&TA Scotland, said:

“This report is another damning indictment of the salmon farming industry. It is symptomatic of a systemic failure to control seabedpollution and throws into doubt whether the current expansion plans of the Scottish salmon farming industry in open-cage systems can ever be environmentally sustainable”.

Guy Linley-Adams, Solicitor to the S&TA Aquaculture Campaign and author of the analysis, said:

“These findings are yet further evidence that open-cage salmon farming as practised in Scotland is inherently unsustainable. They support the S&TA’s conviction that the way forward over the medium-term is to move to closed containment units, from which all waste can be collected and treated or re-used in the same way as any terrestrial intensive food animalproduction factory unit would be required to do."

Paul Knight, CEO at the S&TA, added:

“This report makes a mockery of the industry’s claims on packaging, websites and elsewhere that it always operates in harmony with the wider environment”.

The two companies with the highest percentage of “unsatisfactory” reports are Wester Ross Fisheries Ltd (70 % “unsatisfactory”, 30% “borderline” and 0% “satisfactory”) and Loch Duart Ltd (68% “unsatisfactory”, 26% “borderline” and 6% “satisfactory”), both based in the north-west Highlands.

Read the data in full via "Seabed pollution at almost two thirds of Scottish salmon farms is either ‘unsatisfactory’ or ‘borderline’, analysis of FOI information reveals"

 

 

The scale of the pollution problem is not limited to Scottish salmon farms.  Last week in Eastern Canada, Cooke Aquaculture's subsidiary Kelly Cove Salmon was fined $500,000 following the illegal use of toxic chemicals which killed hundreds of lobsters.  CBC News reported (26 April):

Read more via "Salmon Farming Kills Lobsters!"

 

Shocking video footage from around the world shows how salmon farms are leaving a lasting legacy of pollution. 

So-called "slash-and-burn" aquaculture is polluting the sea-bed and creating dead zones around salmon farms.  The 'pollute and move' on mentality of modern salmon farming is ushering in a new era of shifting cultivation of the sea that is encroaching further and further into lobster grounds and shellfish nursery areas. 

Watch dirty videos from around the world - from Scotland: "Shame Below the Waves" online here

 

Watch more footage from Scotland via "David Ainsley shows us the waste impacts of salmon farms"

 

Watch footage from the Green Warriors of Norway exposing the "big pile of shit" under salmon farms in Norway:

 

Watch footage shot under salmon farms in New Zealand where the farms are "suffocating the sounds":

 

Here's a dirty video from Eastern Canada showing the "mounds of fish manure" under a salmon farm:

 

Watch more X-rated dirty videos shot under salmon farms in British Columbia online here!

Read more on the toxic chemicals creating a "Silent Spring of the Sea" - online here 

 

 

Read about chemical data:

Wellboat chemical discharges 2013 - online here

Wellboat chemical discharges 2010 - online here

 SEPA chemical use data (2010-2013) - online here

 

[Read about Scottish Salmon's Great Escape online here]

[Read about 'Environmental Events' reported by SEPA online here]

 

 

Spinning Scottish Salmon - We Live in Shameless Times!

The shameless spinning of Scottish farmed salmon continues unabated with a 13-page 'Business Insight' pullout from The Times. 



Read in full online here (Warning: do not read on a full stomach!)

The brazen advertising feature plunges new depths of shameless propaganda and biased reporting:

 

For a more critical view of Scottish salmon farming please read Professor David Miller's expose: "Spinning Farmed Salmon"

 

The Times shamelessly and breathlessly continues plugging a product long-known to be contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals and riddled with infectious diseases:

 

More critical readers would do better to read The Daily Telegraph:

 Or The Sunday Express:

 

Or The Sunday Times:

Such is the depth of sordid material available on the Scottish salmon farming industry (read 'Scotland's Secret's' from FishyLeaks) that Channel 4 should commission a new soap opera called 'Shameless Salmon'. 

 

Who knows, it could be picked up by US TV.

 

Or maybe Scottish "filthy" farmed salmon is too difficult for even America's notoriously tasteless palate to stomach.  Readers would be better off reading The Guardian:

 

 

Or The Sunday Herald - although readers of a nervous disposition should have the sick bag handy:

 

The Times ploughs on regardless of the damning recent findings of infectious diseases and toxic chemicals bedeviling the Scottish farmed salmon farming:

You can hear the scraping at the bottom of the barrel as each costly advertising page is turned:

 Like flogging a dead horse, it goes on.........

......And onto the final page:

 

If you have a spare £30,000 available to dupe the public into buying a sea-lice infested product contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals, The Times is only too happy to accept your dirty money for the next issue of 'Business Insight':

 

Shamefully, the Scottish Government and Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond are only too happy to promote salmon farming with Scottish Ministers wanting to increase production by 50% by 2020. 

 

On a shameless PR tour to Norway last year, the First Minister of Scotland plugged Marine Harvest's disease-ridden farmed salmon. 

 

In a press release the First Minister of Scotland opened the floodgates to more salmon farms in Scotland:

 

Watch the First Minister of Scotland selling wild salmon down the river to Norway online here!

 

Read more via "Salmond: Scotland's Salmon Sell-Out #1!"