The Salmon & Trout Association Scotland (S&TAS) is giving its full support to a fundamentally important amendment –
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/BusinessBulletin/60579.aspx
– to the Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill, requiring publication of sea-lice data on an individual salmon farm basis; currently such data is aggregated across regions making it impossible to determine which farms have problems controlling sea-lice.
There was a great deal of discussion during last week’s debate in the Scottish Parliament on the Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill concerning the appropriate resolution for the publication of sea-lice data.
The overwhelming consensus view – shared by NGOs, public bodies and academics – was that farm-by-farm publication of sea-lice data was necessary and appropriate.
MSPs posed the question: “What has the salmon farming industry got to hide?”
Only the industry and the Environment Minister himself oppose full publication of the data.
Publication of sea-lice data on an individual farm basis would show the performance of those farms in relation to sea-lice and enable suchdata to be used for wider research into interactions between wild fisheries and aquaculture. Farm by farm publication of this data is already available in both Norway and Ireland.
Hughie Campbell Adamson, Chairman of S&TAS, said: “The S&TAS regards this matter as a litmus test of how seriously the Scottish Government takes its responsibility towards the environment. All wild fish conservation bodies, SEPA (the main regulator of the aquaculture industry) and relevant local planning authorities want farm-specific sea-lice data to be published in full.
It is only the Scottish Government and the aquaculture industry which believes that the public should have no right to full disclosure and should accept the sanitised information being offered by the fish-farmers.
Until the industry is prepared to be open, there will always be the suspicion that there is something to hide. This deliberate act of concealment negates any chance of an improvement in relations between conservationists and fish farmers, and the Government must be aware of this.”
For SEPA’s view on the publication of sea-lice data, see note (2) below.
Guy Linley-Adams, Solicitor to the S&TA Aquaculture Campaign, added: “If we were discussing a factory on land or a sewage works on a river – or even a salmon farm in Ireland or Norway – this type of data would be in the public domain by law, no question about it. Why should the Scottish salmon farmers be any different?
The Scottish Government’s current position is quite simply out-of-date and indefensible.”
NOTES:
1) The Salmon & Trout Association (S&TA) was established in 1903 to address the damage done to our rivers by the polluting effects of the Industrial Revolution. For 109 years, the S&TA has worked to protect fisheries, fish stocks and the wider aquatic environment on behalf of game angling and fisheries. S&TA has charitable status in both England and Scotland. S&TA’s charitableobjectives empower it to address all issues affecting fish and the aquatic environment, supported by strong scientific evidence from its scientific network. Its charitable status enable it to take the widest possible remit in protecting salmonid fish stocks, and the aquatic environment upon which they depend. www.salmon-trout.org
2) Referring to sea-lice, Douglas Sinclair of SEPA told the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs Climate Change and Environment Committee that this is “one of the few areas in the Scottish environment in which someone can be doing something that can significantly impact on someone else’s interests and there is no public access to what is going on … if someone lives downwind of smoking chimneys on a factory andthey want to find out what is in the smoke, they can find out from us—from the published record. Fish farming in Scotland is the one omission. For all sorts of reasons, it ought to be sorted out and the information ought to be published.” Official Report, Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, 5 December 2012; c 1431.
3) All local authorities with responsibility for marine aquaculture supported farm-level publication of sea-lice data during the consultation for the Bill.
4) The amendment lodged on 5 March reads:
Alex Fergusson
1 Before section 1, insert—
Duty to publish information about fish farms and shellfish farms
After section 1 of the Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Act 2007 insert—
“1A Duty to publish information
A person who carries on a business of fish farming or shellfish farming must—
(a) within 1 month of compiling it, publish information relating to the number of parasites counted in the course of a weekly count of parasites at the facility, including—
(i) the date of the count, and
(ii) the number of parasites counted on the fish sampled per facility and the stages of the life-cycle of the parasites counted, those stages for Caligus elongates being mobiles and for lepeophtheirus salmonis being non-gravid mobiles and gravid females, and
(b) ensure that the published information remains accessible to the public for the period of 3 years beginning with the date of publication.”
