I have been following a campaigner, Corin Smith, for a number of months now, and he has been gaining access to various documents through freedom of information requests etc.
He has a piece on this very report today. Here is his intro.....
"IT'S HERE! The Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee has released their report on the impacts of salmon farming in Scotland.
In what will be seen as an overwhelming endorsement of the concerns of myself, and many others, about the wide ranging environmental impacts of industrial scale salmon farming in Scotland and the almost total lack of an appropriate framework of regulation, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee has set out 65 recommendations it urges the Scottish Ministers to take action on.
The enquiry was the result of a successful petition by Salmon & Trout Conservation Scotland, to have the issues heard and examined.
The report is wide ranging and detailed and can be found at the link below.
All the members of the REC and ECCLR committees should be commended for putting party politics aside to objectively examine the impacts of the salmon farming industry in Scotland.
A brief summary:
- The salmon farming industry in Scotland does have a meaningful economic impact.
- Salmon farming has large environmental impacts.
- The current framework of regulation, inspection and enforcement is inadequate.
- Transformational regulatory overhaul is required if growth of the industry is to be considered.
- All aspects of the regulatory framework should meet the highest international standards. Currently they do not.
- The Precautionary Principle has not been historically applied, but going forward it should be.
- Regulatory overhaul should include the creation of wide and deep statutory regulation, with a move away from a culture of self assessment and the current voluntary standards.
- Levels of sea lice and mortalities associated with disease on many salmon farms are consistently too high.
- Thresholds for mortalities and sea lice should become statutory, with associated enforcement actions for farms/operators which persistently breach these thresholds
- Collection and publication of data related to sea lice and mortalities should be much faster and more transparent.
- Self assessment cannot be the basis for the collection of this data.
- Industry should be making significant contributions to the costs of regulation and the collection of data.
- The widespread use of wild cleaner fish in salmon farms is concerning. Impacts on wild stocks should be understood and should be regulated.
- Salmon farms impact wild fish and should not be located in their migratory routes or allowed to continue to impact their lifecycle. Inappropriately located farms should be helped to relocate.
- There is currently no agency which has responsibility for the management of wild fish stocks. This needs to be addressed.
The findings of two cross-party Parliamentary committees, based on the most wide ranging examination of open-cage salmon farming ever undertaken in Scotland, make it clear that there are an array of unacceptable environmental impacts and a woefully inadequate system of regulation. Faced with overwhelming consensus, the Scottish Government Ministers should take immediate action to end their spin and prevarication, start to properly regulate this industry and protect Scotland's precious costal environment from the worst effects of salmon farming.
But...... it’s not the first time there’s been an enquiry and not the first time these things have been said. Change on the ground is the measure of success"