The global environmental and public health threat of sea cage fish farming p1 of 2

Don Staniford: "A big Fish in a small pond: the global environmental and public health threat of sea cage fish farming"

Aquaculture is the fastest growing sector of the world food economy but has proceeded way in advance of environmental and public health safeguards. So much so that aquaculture and farmed fish products represent a global threat to both the marine environment and consumer safety. Sea cage salmon farming in particular presents insurmountable environmental problems in terms of mass escapes, the spread of infectious diseases, parasite infestation, the reliance upon toxic chemicals and contamination of the seabed. Government inquiries in Canada and Scotland have focused public attention and NGO reports in Chile, the United States, Ireland, Canada and Scotland have all raised awareness. Any industry which is reliant upon a fast-diminishing fisheries resource to fuel its own expansion and which discharges untreated contaminated wastes directly into the sea affecting other coastal users is hardly sustainable. In so many ways, the phrase 'sustainable salmon farming' is an oxymoron.

From family to factory fish farming:
Sea cage fish farming has ushered in a new era of resource exploitation which is both irresponsible and unsustainable. As fish have become privatised, the last two decades has seen a fundamental shift away from 'family' towards 'factory' fish farming and a marked transition from a capture to a culture economy. In 1984 aquaculture accounted for only 8% of fisheries production leaping to ca. 25% in 2001 and by 2020 aquaculture is predicted to have overtaken capture fisheries. This is already the case for salmon where farmed production was 1.1 million tonnes in 2000 compared to a wild catch of 723,000 tonnes. World salmon farming production is predicted to double to over 2 million tonnes in 2010 (in 1996 it was 600,000 tonnes and only 50,000 tonnes in 1985). Global expansion has been fuelled by fewer but larger companies. In 2000, the 30 largest salmon farming companies in the world achieved a total production of 666,300 tonnes (expected to rise to 959,000 tonnes in 2001), accounting for ca. 60% of the world's total farmed salmon production. Nutreco is the world number one with Cermaq, Fjord Seafood and Domstein merging in May 2002 to become the second largest. Such is the stranglehold of multinationals that four companies now control over 80% of the world's salmon feed market. Intrafish describes the situation as "almost incestuous with so many merger talks and buyouts in the global aquaculture industry". Nutreco, in particular, has been heavily criticised with strikes in Chile last year, a 15% fall in its share price following reports of high levels of dioxins in farmed salmon in January 2001 and the subject of an 'Earth Alarm' investigation by Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands). The ecological footprint is now so large that salmon farming is far too big for its boots.

The false economy of sea cage fish farming:
Farming carnivores such as salmon, halibut, cod, sea bass, sea bream and tuna so high up the food chain is a case of 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'. Over 3 tonnes of wild fish are required to produce one tonne of farmed salmon, for example (for other marine fish this rises to over 5 tonnes). Farming salmon is like farming tigers and has been described as 'biological nonsense'. On land we only farm herbivores such as cattle, pigs, sheep and chickens so why do we not apply the same principles when farming in the sea? When all the environmental, economic and social costs are internalised, sea cage fish farming makes precious little sense at all. Sadly, common sense is not a currency those bankrolling salmon farming are used to dealing in. Salmon farming is running on empty - it is literally running out of fuel. Such is aquaculture's appetite that it already uses up ca. 75% of the world's fish oil and ca. 40% of the world's fish meal. The International Fishmeal and Oil Manufacturers Association predict that by 2010 aquaculture could consume 56% of the world's fishmeal and 90% of the world's fish oil. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, by 2010 salmon and trout alone could consume 620,000 tonnes of fish oil. Like crude oil, fish oil - the new blue gold - has become a key commodity in the world economy. Fisheries resources are becoming so scarce and so expensive that salmon companies are stockpiling fish feed and investing in fishing fleets to catch fish themselves. Not only is this fuel supply fast running out but also the remaining fish is contaminated with dioxins, poly-chlorinated bi-phenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides. Hence the increasingly desperate search for alternatives such as soya, seaweeds, krill and plankton. Salmon farming is like an oil tanker heading for the rocks.

Cancer of the coast:
Salmon farming's capacity to foul its own nest is no more so apparent than in the lochs, bays, loughs, fjords and inlets around the coasts of Norway, Scotland, Ireland, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Maine, the Faroes, Tasmania, New Zealand and Chile. The waters off China, Argentina, South Africa and France are next on the shopping list but these countries should think twice before allowing salmon farms to pollute pristine coastal waters. In Canada and Scotland, for example, research has shown high levels of PCBs, DDT and alkylated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the sediments under salmon cages. Figures produced by the manufacturers of Calicide (teflubenzuron) show that 90% will be excreted as the parent compound via faeces with high levels still detected some 18 months after chemical treatment. The cocktail of toxic chemicals used on salmon farms jeopardises not only the marine environment but also the safety of workers. Chemicals used on salmon farms include carcinogens, mutagens and a myriad of 'marine pollutants'. The decision to licence them is based more on economic expediency than consumer safety and is tantamount to state-sponsored pollution.

Other threats include the interbreeding of wild salmon and farmed escapees and the spread of sea lice and infectious diseases such as Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis (IPN) and Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA). ISA outbreaks have been recorded since 1998 in Scotland, Maine, the Faroes and Norway where the situation has been described as "worse than ever". In Canada this year an outbreak of Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis (IHN) led to over one million fish being slaughtered (4 million salmon were slaughtered during the ISA outbreak in Scotland). In May a deadly new parasite was discovered at a salmon farm in Northern Norway threatening one of the best Atlantic salmon rivers in Europe. An obvious way of spreading diseases, parasites and genetic pollution is via escapes. There have been over 1 million reported escapes from fish farms in Scotland alone since 1997 with an estimated 5 million in Norway over the last decade. In the Faroes in February this year 600,000 salmon escaped in what is believed to be the largest escape anywhere in the world and escapes are such a problems that in British Columbia Atlantic salmon are now breeding in the Pacific and have been caught in Alaskan waters. Nor does the introduction of GM technology (GM salmon trials have already taken place in New Zealand, Scotland and Canada) augur well for the future. And the replacement of contaminated fish meal and fish oil in the diets of farmed salmon with GM soya will inevitably meet with consumer resistance, especially in Europe. Welcome to the brave new world of 21st century fish.

Chemical culture:
Flooding coastal waters with a cocktail of toxic chemicals is the antithesis of the precautionary principle. In Scotland, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has approved over 700 chemical licences for cypermethrin (Excis), azamethiphos (Salmosan), teflubenzuron (Calicide) and emamectin benzoate (Slice) since 1998. These chemicals are all described as "marine pollutants" in the manufacturers Safety Data Sheets. Cypermethrin, for example, has recently been shown to have "area-wide effects" on sensitive species such as shellfish and significant impacts on salmon's sense of smell and reproduction. An ongoing Government-sponsored study by the Scottish Association of Marine Science also highlights the potential risks of sea lice chemicals. Since Scotland is acknowledged as the most difficult country to secure approvals, chemical consumption in other salmon farming countries such as Norwegian, Canada and Chile may be even higher. Salmon farming is locked into a chemicals arm race.

The UK's Department of the Environment estimated in 1991 that 10-20 tonnes of the organophosphate dichlorvos was used annually on Scottish salmon farms with SEPA admitting this year that many licences to use dichlorvos are still active. In July 2001 the Department of Health's Committee on Mutagenicty in the UK published evidence that dichlorvos was