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COAST asks questions in Oslo

Sally Campbell of COAST attended the Marine Harvest AGM in Oslo last month and reports serious concerns about its ecological and humanitarian standards.

Written by Nick Underdown
Photograph(s) by Nick Underdown
Thursday, 24 July 2008

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Dr Sally Campbell of COAST (The Community of Arran Seabed Trust) travelled to Oslo last month to attend the AGM of Marine Harvest (MH) International, the world’s largest aquaculture company. Marine Harvest is the Norwegian company that bought the St Molio’s fish farm site adjacent to Kings Cross in the 1980s. It recently hived off the site to form Lighthouse Caledonia, but the company still has a local interest and intends to re-apply for a licence to build a larger fish farm in Clauchlands. This further operation would be less than 200m from the proposed site of Scotland’s first No Take Zone in Lamlash Bay.

At the MH headquarters, Sally Campbell presented a letter to the CEO of Marine Harvest on behalf of the Federation of Irish Salmon and Sea Trout Association in Ireland and the Save the Swilly campaign. She says she found a company still shirking its environmental responsibilities, and contends that Marine Harvest’s farmed fish production is having potentially serious consequences for many of the world’s ecosystems — consequences that threaten the very ‘sustainability’ of the industry.‘The confusion for people is — what is sustainability?’ asks Sally. ‘Is it sustainability of profit for shareholders? Is it sustainability of the ecosystems of the places where they site the fish farms? Is it the sustainability of the Antarctic or Chile? Or is it the sustainability of the fish population that depends on sand-eels?’

At the AGM, fellow campaigners raised example after example of how the fish farm company is having unsustainable effects on environments and communities. One such example is a revolution within the krill industry. Many of Marine Harvest’s fish farms are supplied with krill (shrimp-like creatures) as food for the captive salmon, and this is one reason why farmed salmon have an unnaturally bold pink colour. Krill are one of the most important food sources in the Antarctic, but new processing techniques by MH supplier Aker Biomarine have transformed the industry. In the face of falling stocks of other fish species and soaring food prices, krill is now being harvested in unprecedented volumes. The effects are currently unknowable, but could further upset an already unbalanced ocean ecosystem. Sally met with the CEO of Aker Biomarine, but reported, ‘He didn’t actually want to hear what we had to say. They are colluding in the behaviour of Marine Harvest in Canada.’

MH has a 25% share of the global aquaculture market, operating in 18 countries with 7,500 employees.The company has received some mixed publicity in recent weeks. A ‘sustainable’ deal with Sainsbury’s endorsed by Jamie Oliver has been counter-balanced by numerous reports of tumbling production in their Chilean operations and multiple fish farm escapes in Canada. After watching a series of presentations, Sally commented, ‘They have made a big play about being flavour of the month, but what they don’t mention is what happens in Chile. They don’t mention the krill.’

Marine Harvest don’t mention a lot of things in their glossy shareholder literature, but pressure from groups such as the Pure Salmon Campaign is beginning to force the company to consider the question of corporate responsibility. While in Oslo, Sally talked with other campaigners from all over the world, who made a number of disturbing observations about the fish farm industry. When Marine Harvest substituted 10% of its fish feed with soya vegetable oil from Argentina, it added to the growing deforestation to make way for new soya farms.

Thinking global

In her trip to Oslo, Sally joined a network of people who assess the impacts of Marine Harvest across its global operations. Juan Carlos, a Chilean vet who has set up a marine conservation group called Ecoceanos, reported sub-standard working conditions for MH employees in Chile, with workers receiving $480 per month for work days of 10-12 hours. Juan Carlos stated that MH do not operate by the same standards in Chile as are observed in Europe. In 14 months, 54 workers died in their plants, the highest mortality rate in the world salmon industry. ‘If that was in Norway or the UK, MH would be in huge difficulties with health and safety,’ Sally told the Arran Voice. ‘What a multinational needs is to have standards that it implements throughout the whole world .'

Threat to wild fish

Sally also met with Canadian-based campaigners who are deeply concerned about the impact of fish farms on wild salmon populations. Adult wild salmon naturally have a few sea-lice, but these are killed by freshwater when they return to their rivers to breed. Sally explains that in the natural system, adult salmon never meet the young salmon, which have no scales until they mature. ‘The problem comes when you have young salmon passing adult salmon that have sea-lice,’ she said. This happens if fish farms are sited along salmon migratory routes or near rivers. Marine Harvest have tried hard to minimise this danger, but a string of large escapes from salmon farms in recent years have done the industry no favours. Research shows that up to 95% of young salmon are dying after passing fish farms with sea lice in British Columbia and a recent global study has warned against the damaging impacts of fish farms on wild fish populations. Angling associations are just one of a number of groups that are concerned about the knock-on impacts. And, as Sally makes clear, ‘All the while the fish farmers are externalising their costs and the costs of clear-up. The cost is paid for by the environment and invariably the tax-payer and by Crown Estates. They pay nothing for the damage short term or longer term.'

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