Hi Cermaq/Undercurrent News
Below are a few comments on the following Undercurrent News
post for April 10, 2019: https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2019/04/09/kiemele-cermaq-canada-wont-settle-for-second-best-in-nova-scotia/?utm_source=Undercurrent+News+Alerts&utm_campaign=b61b05a21f-Americas_briefing_Apr_09_2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_feb55e2e23-b61b05a21f-92426209.
Industry likes to sell itself to governments on jobs and
revenue. The problem is: the stats are inflated.
By analyzing the new BC Stats report on the ‘fishing sectors’
as they term it, I show that Cermaq et al’s BC revenue at $777.3M, is $582.9M
higher than its contribution to BC GDP, meaning a lot of revenue is taken home
to Norway and shareholders, and does not benefit the BC economy at all – up to 300% more than GDP contribution.
Similarly, the claim that BC revenue is $1.5B is, to put it
mildly, ‘incorrect.’ As noted, BC Stats has it at $777.3M, so, the industry claim
is 193% too high.
On jobs, Cermaq et al, including DFO, like to say there are
7,000 jobs in BC. BC Stats says it is 1800, or the industry claim is 389% too high. In fact, the new BC
Stats report says employment has fallen in fish farms since 2000, almost two
decades ago. See: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/03/mar-21-2019-bc-stats-report-2016.html.
So, no, the industry cannot be sold on jobs and revenue – in
NS, BC or anywhere else. And the environmental cost is also high. I calculate
the BC sewage cost, conservatively, at $10.4B, with up to 5.76B fish killed to feed
one crop to harvest (links upon request). These costs need to be determined in
NS so the public knows the facts.
No doubt the processing/hatchery/fish farm jobs and revenue
for expansion in NS are similarly inflated, with environmental costs ignored.
The move to NS is widely seen as needed because the door on in-ocean
fish farms in BC is closing with the Broughton Archipelago being the first of
many areas, and Clayoquot Sound, a UNESCO Biosphere, incompatible with in-ocean
fish farms, to come. Cermaq has the big number of fish farms in that slow-flushing
body of water, with wild salmon on the brink of extinction, particularly
chinook, estimated at only 501 fish in six streams. Kennedy sockeye have not
returned from commercial over-fishing in the ‘90s when fish farms moved in.
Despite what Cermaq might say, in-ocean fish farming is a
method of the past. My post shows 274 different on-land fish farm systems
around the world: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2016/05/152-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html.
And here is a post that has almost 100 good news posts on
on-land fish farms in just the past few months: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/11/links-to-on-land-closed-containment.html.
Kiemele’s comment that Cermaq, “in Canada, is focused on
using mechanical alternatives to solve sea lice problems,” is also bunkum. In 2018
they got 2 million litres of Paramove 50 to dump into the ocean, like Silent Spring, in Clayoquot. Here is a
toxicity paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0044848613005735.
And, Cermaq’s 2018 sea lice treatment graphs show cyclical lice
levels all summer long, indicative of resistance to drugs. And, no ‘mechanical
methods’, only chemicals. The mechanical methods are a last ditch stand – once lice
have become resistant to all
chemicals – to avoid getting out of the water. Not to mention they also applied
for an Emergency Drug Release for Lufenuron in 2019. I am currently writing a
post on chemical use in Clayoquot, where the Indigenous are against fish farms.
Here are graphs of Cermaq’s lice graphs. Note the peaks and
troughs: https://livingoceans.org/sites/default/files/Lice%20report%20final_0.pdf.
See Bawden, for example, on page 7.
In closing, let me add that you should give up the spin of ‘educating’
the public to like in-ocean fish farms. That was invented in the 1970s and has been
patronizing and silly for 50 years.
And even more in closing, the note about going to Tasmania
has some humour as the public there has risen in protest against fish farms,
particularly Tassal, like everywhere else in the world. Note that my BAD NEWS
BITES posts are now nearing 4,500 problems in the global fish farm/seafood
industry. Here is one post: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/12/bad-news-bites-global-problems-in-fish.html.
Time to get out of the water guys.
DC Reid
