Our originally scheduled date was postponed due to Fiona but WE ARE BACK ON - the live event is happening THIS SUNDAY at the Astor Theatre!
Over the past two months The Healthy Bays Network has been hosting a book launch and speaking event series around the province with the authors of the newly published book Salmon Wars: the Dark Underbelly of Our Favourite Fish.
The federal government has mandated to phase out open net-pens in B.C.'s coastal waters. Washington state and Argentina have banned net-pen 'farming' of Atlantic Salmon. The new Chilean President publicly criticizes the industry and has vowed to scale it back and crack-down with stricter regulations. Globally the industry is investing in and transitioning to more sustainable, land-based closed containment systems - with the world's most sustainably raised land-based producer of Atlantic Salmon, Sustainable Blue, based right here in Nova Scotia. But yet Nova Scotia's DFA is promoting expansion of the cheap and dirty net-pen industry in our shallow rural bays.
Our Provincial leaders are prepared to enable a fourfold expansion of net-pen salmon operations in NS's coastal waters, with industry players looking to increase production from 20 million to 80 million pounds of farmed salmon annually. These are not small local owner-operated fish farms of past, these are massive industrial scale feedlots owned by multi-international giant corporations who are flocking to N.S. where they're offered cheap ocean leases and favourable regulations (ie; for stocking density and lice counts) than their home countries. This harmful industry directly impacts marine ecosystems, local fisheries, tourism, all local users of the waters and shoreline property owners with loud, smelly unsightly feedlots that directly dump pesticides, antibiotics and all waste directly into the ocean.
Coastal communities are forced to fight back to protect their local waters. Now as several Nova Scotia feedlot proposals await government approval, investigative journalists and award winning authors (and South Shore residents!) Doug Frantz and Catherine Collins have released the newest and most damming salmon farming expose yet - this time with a distinct Atlantic flavour.
This launch event will feature guest speakers in a discussion focusing on the future of our bays, the value of our traditional fisheries, and the potential for more sustainable and regenerative aquacultural opportunities that do not include the expansion of open net-pen salmon farming in our waters.
LIVERPOOL EVENT: Join the Salmon Wars authors with our Co-Hosts the Healthy Bays network at The Astor Theatre in Liverpool for a discussion and book signing, as well as a special key note address by guest speaker Dr. Tony Charles, the Senior Research Fellow in Environment and Sustainability, St. Mary's University (Halifax), Director of the School of Environment, and a Professor in the Sobey School of Business. Author of Communities, Conservation and Livelihoods. Dr. Charles specializes in interdisciplinary research focusing on environmental systems and natural resources (especially fisheries, coasts and oceans), notably relating to governance, socio-economics and sustainability, as well as challenges of climate change, poverty, and food security.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS OF SALMON WARS:
"Frantz spent 37 years as a newspaper editor and reporter, sharing a Pulitzer Prize at The New York Times and serving as managing editor of the Los Angeles Times. After leaving journalism, he was chief investigator for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Assistant Secretary of State in the Obama administration, and Deputy Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Collins was a reporter and prize-winning foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and contributed to The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Upon leaving her newspaper career, she became a private investigator specializing in international financial fraud and corruption.
They began work on Salmon Wars in January 2020 after hearing about the environmental dangers of salmon farming at a public meeting near their home in Nova Scotia."
For more info about the Salmon Wars book contents visit the book website here.
This is a FREE event, ALL WELCOME! Please share widely with friends colleagues and all those who love our coast. We look forward to seeing you there.
* BOOK GIVEAWAY *
All attendees can enter our free draw for a chance to WIN one of 3 signed copies of the book. Facebook followers who visit our FB event page and click on *Going* will automatically receive a bonus entry!
BOOK SALES at the event provide by Lunenburg Bound.
