Þetta er sama sagan og í annarri stóriðju. Hvort sem það er á Íslandi eða i Skotlandi, einsog segir frá i meðfylgjandi frétt.
Gríðarleg pressa er sett á stjórnvöld um undanþágur frá lögum eða sérstakar reglur fyrir sjókvíaeldið. Við þetta bætist linnulaus sókn í sjóði almennings.
Fyrirtækin byggja í þessu skyni náin tengsl við stjórnmálamenn og áhrifafólk innan flokkanna til að gæta hagsmuna þeirra á löggjafarþingum viðkomandi landa.
The multinational salmon farming industry privately lobbied the Scottish Government at least 20 times in the last year, calling for regulations to be relaxed, consents to be streamlined and companies to be given public subsidies.
Internal correspondence seen by The Ferret reveals that industry bosses have written 18 times to ten senior ministers and officials since March 2023 pleading for action on nine issues. They have also met with ministers twice, once pressing for “more financial support”.
Most of the lobbying was done by Tavish Scott, the former LibDem MSP and minister who now heads the industry body, Salmon Scotland. He has opposed new rules to control sea lice at salmon farms, urged “root and branch streamlining reform” of the process for approving new fish farms and sought a series of other changes.
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The Scottish Government has released 72 pages of emails between the salmon industry and senior ministers and officials from March 2023 to January 2024. The emails were requested by The Ferret under freedom of information law.
Much of the lobbying was attempting to delay or block plans by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) to control sea lice. Lice can infest caged salmon and spread to wild fish swimming in the sea.
Salmon Scotland’s Tavish Scott wrote to ministers and officials six times about lice controls between March and December 2023. He also met with the rural affairs secretary, Mairi Gougeon, at St Andrews House in Edinburgh on 30 May 2023.
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He also criticised Sepa’s proposed lice controls. “We remain concerned that Sepa continues to exceed their brief in this area, developing a highly complex, restrictive and scientifically questionable regulatory framework, which may have a considerable impact on our sector,” he wrote.
In April 2023, Scott wrote to rural affairs secretary Gougeon and the net zero secretary, Mairi McAllan, again complaining about Sepa’s lice controls. The letter was copied to the Scottish Government’s marine deputy director, Malcolm Pentland.
“Our sector has repeatedly raised significant concerns with the development of this new regulatory framework, noting serious issues with the underpinning principles and scientific justification,” Scott said.
He accused Sepa of failing to demonstrate that lice from fish farms had a “significant adverse impact” on wild salmon. New regulations “must not be developed in haste, in response to wider political pressures,” he argued.
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Salmon Scotland helped lobby Gougeon and McAllan against proposed restrictions on the use of the lice-killing pesticide, emamectin. It forwarded a letter from industry vets asking for a meeting to highlight “the potentially significant impacts” of the restrictions.
As well as lice, Scott lobbied the then economy secretary, Neil Gray, in January 2024 in support of “root and branch streamlining reform” of the fish farming consenting process. This, he said, had been recommended by a 2022 fish farming regulatory review by Professor Russel Griggs, and agreed by ministers.
Scott wrote: “We are disappointed and puzzled as to why such a clear ministerial endorsement of an independent regulatory assessment has proved so difficult to implement or even make substantive progress.”
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‘Lack of transparency, trust and equity’
The campaign group, WildFish, described The Ferret’s revelations about salmon industry lobbying as “shocking, both in terms of the amount, and the content of the lobbying itself.”“We are particularly concerned about attempts by Salmon Scotland to develop a direct agreement with the Scottish Government around developing the sea lice regulations – effectively cutting out any third-party scrutiny from civil society,” said the group’s Scotland director, Rachel Mulrenan.
“It’s outrageous that the industry feels entitled to demand a seat at the table to develop regulation for its own activities, effectively tying the Scottish Government’s hands on making any progress to curb this risk.”
Professor Andrew Watterson, an expert on environmental regulation from Stirling University, argued that the “lack of transparency, trust and equity” needed to be urgently corrected by the Scottish Government.
He pointed out that individuals and communities with limited resources have “minimal” input. “There is no level playing field and there is a real environmental justice deficit here,” he told The Ferret.
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The Ferret reported in 2020 that the salmon farming industry was one of Scotland’s top 14 lobbyists. It recorded 22 face-to-face meetings with ministers on the lobbying register between March 2018 and July 2020.