Traffic jam
Norway has its “traffic light system” (TLS) as a form of aquaculture regulation related to the number of sea lice estimated to be on farm. The regulators believe, based on the views of expert scientists, that the sea lice load on a salmon farm has a direct impact on the state of wild fish stocks. Thus if sea lice levels on farms can be kept to the lowest possible number, then stocks of wild salmon and sea trout will thrive.
Unfortunately, after nearly 10 years of this regulation, wild stocks are far from thriving. The perception is that the reason that the TLS has not worked is because any controls imposed are applied to a whole area and that some farms may not have applied the controls as rigorously as others.
The regulator is therefore proposing to modify the TLS to a system of sea lice quotas where every farm will be individually monitored and have punitive measures applied if they exceed their quota. This is despite the fact that no-one has yet provided any evidence that high lice levels on a farm have any direct impact on local wild fish stocks.
In Scotland, the regulators are using a similar quota system to regulate salmon farming in order to protect wild fish. This is despite a similar lack of evidence that sea lice levels on farms are having an impact on wild fish stocks. Scotland, unlike Norway, has a long coastline free of salmon farms, on the eastern side of the country, and yet wild fish stocks are declining there at an even faster rate than in areas where salmon farms operate.
The problem is that the narrative and the science dictating both the Norwegian and Scottish regulation are significantly flawed. Rather than review the narrative and assess the science, however, the regulators and the scientists in both countries refuse to engage in any discussion.
Now, news has emerged that the Interdisciplinary Centre for Aquaculture Research (INCAR) is proposing a traffic light system of regulation for the Chilean salmon farming industry too.
As Chile does not have a native wild salmon population, the proposal is for a broader ecosystem-based approach, which might consider production, health, oceanographic conditions and environmental and climatic variables. It seems that the factors that have driven their proposal are the risk of losing biodiversity and the need to improve productivity and animal welfare.
INCAR says that they don’t have sufficient evidence of any potential devastating impacts of salmon farming, but equally they say that they don’t have any evidence that there is not.
It would appear that the main driver for this proposal is the many negative news stories promoted by groups across the world who accuse the salmon farming sector of a whole range of problems but without providing any real evidence – or in many cases, any evidence at all – to support their claims. Instead of verified science and actual evidence, it seems that all the TLS type regulation is based on a narrative created by those who are opposed to aquaculture, for a range of reasons only known to themselves.
Regulation for its own sake?
It is admirable of INCAR to propose a new system of regulation for Chilean salmon farming. There is no doubt that every salmon producer wants to produce their fish with minimal impact on the surrounding environment and with the highest possible standards of animal welfare, despite attempts to suggest otherwise. Regulation for the sake of regulation is not the way forward, however.
INCAR must be congratulated because of their willingness to have an open discussion with the industry on the proposals. This is something that is greatly lacking in other jurisdictions.
In Norway, the proposals to change to a sea lice quota are now, after many objections, supposed to be accompanied by discussions on the science and evidence, although how this is supposed to happen is unclear. So far, the Norwegian scientific community has expressed a view that they are happy with their interpretation of the science but that they will always consider new science as it is published. What they omit to mention is that they continue to ignore any science, some of it 30 years old, that doesn’t fit in with their explanation of sea lice infestation.
INCAR’s proposals include controls on the dispersal of nutrients and medications, but clearly this has to be assessed for every salmon farming site, as every site is different. In Scotland, such considerations are included in the licence, so extra regulation is simply an unnecessary burden.
INCAR are also considering what happens to any fish that escape, despite there being no native population. Perhaps they think that it could be possible for any escapes to find their way into any local river and thus have the potential to create a new population. This is always a possibility but the likelihood is that it would represents a very small risk.
It should be remembered that there is already a population of non-native sea trout in Patagonia which was introduced in the early 1900s to improve local angling. These were brought over from the northern hemisphere as eggs and eventually the resulting fish formed a breeding population.
However, the experience of escapes in Europe is that most get lost at sea with only a few managing to swim up to the higher reaches where wild fish would normally breed. It would be extremely unlikely that they could create a new population considering the large numbers of restocked sea trout eggs that were needed to create a new population in Patagonia. The need for regulation of escapes is highly overstated, but so too is the need for any form of TLS system anywhere in the salmon farming world, let alone in Chile.
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