Scots Say Farmed Salmon Is Ruining Their Environment. Want to help? STOP Eating it! - HEATED

"The Scottish government allows our seas to be used as a free waste dump. The environmental issues are being swept under the rug, and customers and supermarkets can’t see what’s going on." - John Aitchison, Activist and Filmmaker

Aritcle Excerpts from HEATED, Food from every angle: A publication from Medium x Mark Bittman | Written by, Michael Scatturo | March 2, 2020

"Along Scotland’s western coastline, multinational corporations raise salmon for European, American, and Asian customers, whose thirst for the fish’s luscious pink meat seems unquenchable. The industry is set to grow 5 percent this year, and Scotland’s boutique brand all but assures it a slice of that business. Salmon-farm companies and government ministers who approve the farms’ operation bet that the risks of this highly industrial farming operation can be mitigated. Yet they are running into intense opposition from people who live near the salmon farms. Locals say the cheap sushi found in European gas stations and the luxurious salmon steaks in Shanghai hotels are being cultivated at the expense of their health, their environment, and ultimately our planet.

This tussle between global salmon growers and local Scots burst out into the open last year after the BBC ran a documentary painting the industry as rapacious and disinterested in the locals’ concerns. And while the activists do indeed reserve the bulk of their anger for the individuals who run the farms and their backers in government, they have a message for American consumers: Please stop enabling this sullying of our environment via your seafood purchases."

Scottish salmon farm companies use images of castles, jumping fish, pristine waters in their marketing. But the reality is, it’s all just PR,” John Aitchison, an activist who opposes farmed salmon, told me. “The Scottish government allows our seas to be used as a free waste dump. The environmental issues are being swept under the rug, and customers and supermarkets can’t see what’s going on.”

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Shared from Salmon Society's Watershed Watch news Round-up