Tarjei Kidd Olsen
OSLO, Jul 2 2008 (IPS) – Environmental damage, diseases or workers rights abuses are common at fish farms in Chile and Canada operated by the world s largest salmon company, according to activists.
Fish lice-infected salmon at a Canadian salmon farm. Credit: Pure Salmon Campaign
A group of Chilean and Canadian scientists and activists visited Oslo to press home the accusations at the company s annual general meeting last month.
The Norwegian-run company, Marine Harvest, denies many of the claims, and accuses the activists of running errands for rich U.S.-based lobbyists.
We have crossed half the world to be here today because Marine Harvest won t talk to us in Chile, secretary general Juan Carlos Cadenas of the Chilean civil society organisation Centro Ecoeanos told IPS.
Marine Harvest is the biggest salmon company in Chile, the world s second largest producer and exporter of farmed salmon.
Cadenas accuses Marine Harvest of using salmon farming methods that cause disease among the salmon and damage the environment, in turn threatening the livelihoods of local company employees, fishermen, and communities.
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In July 2007 an outbreak of the deadly Infectious Salmon Anaemia Virus (ISAV) began at Marine Harvest-operated farms in Chile. Millions of salmon have died since then. According to Cadenas, 21 farms are now affected by the virus outbreak, 13 of which are operated by Marine Harvest or Cermaq, another Norwegian company.
Marine Harvest has not taken any responsibility for the impacts associated with this situation. Its main action following the outbreak has been to close two fish plants and eight fish farm centres, to reduce activities by two-thirds, to fire 600 workers, and to announce that 1,200 workers will be laid off. This is 25 percent of all Marine Harvest workers in Chile. This way they are passing on the ISAV burden to the workers, says Cadenas.
He says that the underwater containment pens that are used by the fish farms are ideal breeding grounds for ISAV and other viruses, parasites and fungi that kill off the salmon and pollute the marine environment.
ISAV is just the top of the iceberg because the density of fish per cage is too high, and the fish farms are too close to each other. In Chile you have the same amount of salmon along a 300-metre stretch that you have along a 1,000-metre stretch in Norway. This is in fact a problem for the whole industry.
Marine Harvest s spokesman Arne Hjeltnes rejects most of these arguments, pointing out that a report by a Norwegian Labour Organisation delegation that visited Chile last year concluded that working conditions, wages, and the environment for labour organising was better at Marine Harvest than at the other salmon farming companies. He alleges that the Chileans are being manipulated by wealthy U.S. anti-salmon farming lobbyists.
At such a difficult time for the industry I think that it s a shame that there are groups that allow themselves to be used by well-financed American lobby groups. The delegation that visited Norway was brought here by one of the strongest anti-salmon farming lobby organisations in the U.S., he told IPS.
One such pressure group is Pure Salmon Campaign, which has strongly criticised the activities of Marine Harvest and Cermaq, the other large Norwegian salmon-farming company in Chile and Canada. Pure Salmon Campaign has helped coordinate activists from Chile, Canada, and other countries.
In 2004 an article in the peer-reviewed journal Science found that farmed salmon has higher levels of pollutants than wild salmon, and that people should restrict their use of farmed salmon for health reasons. There has been some criticism of the methodology used in this research, and over its funding by U.S.-based Pew Charitable Trusts, a wealthy environmental campaigner linked to Canadian anti-salmon groups.
These are the same forces that brought us the infamous article in Science which greatly damaged the Norwegian salmon farming industry, he said.
I m quite surprised to see how uncritically some organisations and the media have accepted their message, he added. Marine Harvest is investing big in a good Chilean salmon industry. But maybe that s a bad story .
Hjeltnes says that the company follows strict regulations that ensure that there are not too many salmon in the containment pens, but agrees that the pens are too close together.
We are establishing the foundation for a strong salmon industry in Chile, both by moving farms and by securing safe areas. So far this year this seems to be yielding good results, but the creation of a sustainable salmon industry down there is not just up to us it demands a better control regime and better coordination between the companies, he told IPS.
To combat health threats such as ISAV, Chilean salmon companies use large amounts of antibiotic medicines that can perhaps be passed on to humans when they eat the fish. Over time high levels of antibiotics in humans can decrease resistance to diseases. Some people are also allergic to antibiotics.
A Chilean study found levels of antibiotics in Chilean salmon in street stalls and supermarkets that would be illegal in the U.S. When you eat with your family you want to eat just salmon, not salmon with antibiotics, said Cadenas.
According to estimates in an article by The New York Times, Chilean salmon farms use between 70 and 300 times higher levels of antibiotics than salmon farms in Norway.
Hjeltnes admits that the use of antibiotics has been too high, but says that things have been improving since the company was restructured in a 2006 merger. The company is due to release a progress report at the end of the year.
He adds that all use of medicines at the company needs to be sanctioned by a veterinary, and says that tests on their fish by the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. have not turned up any traces of medicines.
There is no danger for consumers and it cannot be found in the salmon fillets that end up on American dinner plates, Hjeltnes said.
Marine Harvest s Chilean operations are not the only target of criticism. According to Chief Bob Chamberlain, a First Nations (Inuit) leader in Canada s British Columbia region, sea lice from the company s farms are infecting and killing off wild salmon.
British Columbia s Broughton Archipelago is ground zero of the international struggle against fish lice from salmon farms. Here you have seven significant wild salmon runs, and every place where their smolts (baby salmon) come to migrate to the sea, you find these giant fish farm groupings, or nooses of death, Chamberlain told IPS.
In fact, virtually all marine species are declining in the area, and the only thing new over the last 25 years is fish farms, he said.
Chamberlain wants the salmon industry to invest in better technology.
I think it is at a point now where the Norwegian companies, as the main drivers of this industry, need to develop closed containment systems for the salmon. We need to develop some sort of physical barrier between the aquaculture industry and the wild salmon.
I understand that there are high energy demands for such a proposed system, but I ve absolute faith in the engineers of Norwegian and Canada this is simply a mechanics problem that can be overcome in a reasonable manner, said Chamberlain.
However, Hjeltnes says that Pure Salmon has refused to look at their compromise solutions for Canada, and argues that closed containment is too expensive.
It will cost large sums to recreate the sea on land, with currents, cleaning, and water temperatures. Environmentally speaking this would be very unwise. But I do believe that it will be possible to operate closed containment pens in the sea sometime in the future, and we are working on this in Norway.
Scotland s west coast has also become a battleground for Marine Harvest, according to activist and former marine biologist Dr. Sally Campbell, another member of the delegation who visited Oslo.
Marine Harvest wants to build one of Scotland s largest fish farms in an area known as Lamlash Bay. The fish farm would be adjacent to a newly established no-fishing zone that is intended to help regenerate marine life and protect a corral-like sea weed known as maerl, which acts as a nursery for young fish. Campbell believes that the new farm would damage this effort.
This fish farm would be right next to the No-Take Zone (no-fishing zone), and we all know that if you put 200 tonnes of waste into the water it will affect the local marine environment, Campbell, who represents environmental lobby Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST), told IPS.
On Mar. 4 the proposal was voted down by local politicians after pressure from COAST and representatives of other community organisations.
