Chamber and committees

The committee has heard growing evidence that warmer sea temperatures due to climate change are a key cause of increased mortality and fish health issues. This morning, we have discussed the detail of that at length. The committee would be interested to hear whether open-net fish farming has a long-term future, given that sea temperatures are predicted to continue to increase, or whether the industry will need to move to semi-closed or closed containment.

Salmon Scotland’s “Community Engagement Charter” says:

“We believe that salmon farming companies should take a ‘good neighbour’ approach with local communities by operating with transparency and integrity and adopting best practice methods of engagement”,

and that

“where relevant, we will engage communities in a vote to allow the local people to have a direct say in what is happening.”

It goes on to say that Salmon Scotland will

“Consider putting the decision to a community vote—it is the ultimate test of whether the case has been made for a site and has the support of the wider population.”

Have you ever put a vote to the community?

You mentioned a number of islands. What about the new feed barge at Mowi? I do not think that that went to a vote. However, I understand from talking to local people that there was a lot of opposition to it. At a meeting, Mowi said that it is not obliged to inform the community about the expansion plans for the feed barge. Since then, Mowi has withdrawn the application.

My sense from talking to communities is that they feel that they should have the right to know about full expansion plans for salmon farms that operate in their waters. At what point does the industry consider community objection to a particular planning application to be legitimate? If I take the feed barge application as an example, once a community has rejected an application, surely that should be the point at which the industry accepts that, takes notice and lets go of it. However, communities feel that applications get rejected but then the industry comes back with another one. There was a recent example of that happening on Skye.

There is an issue with the charter if industry says, for example, that it wants to listen to communities, that it respects them and that it might put its plans to a vote, but then it doubles down on its plans. Is that because it believes that that is the right place for something to happen for industry? One thing that we heard at the community event was that the community cannot move; they cannot leave that place.

I have a brief follow-up question for Ben Hadfield. You said that you have a plan for appropriate feeding. Will you describe that?

I am just trying to understand if the industry would invest in that.

So why was only one pen—the one that we went to visit—treated?

Okay. Is there something that happens that triggers that treatment, such as lice, gill health, morphological changes or something like that? What was the process? Those seven pens were treated over what period of time?

Out of how many fish in a cage?

Yes, it is coming.

Ben, you were talking about the rate of applications; however, the industry has declared that it wants to double production by 2030. That is the root of my question. How can that be possible with the current rates of mortality, which would have to be halved in order for that overall number of dead fish to even stay at the 16 to 17 million dead per year? The idea is to increase and expand by 2030, but we are facing extreme mortality issues and a fluctuating climate. What more can we do, since it seems that the measures are not really helping?

At their largest size, say.