Shawn Hall of the BC Salmon Farmers association helped demystify some of the issues surrounding salmon farms in Canada…
As West Canada’s booming salmon farming sector faces a Supreme Court challenge over land and water rights and as its provincial government reviews 20 fish-farm tenures, it’s important that the industry communicates the benefits of salmon farming to the community.
Host Brent Stafford of the site www.regulatorwatch.com put forward issues to Mr Hall such as disease, sea lice, fish escapes to replace marine-based open-net pens to land based farms.
Mr Hall emphasised the need for farmed salmon saying that “by providing a sustainable resource it reduces pressure to overfish. If farms were to suddenly disappear there would be a lot more pressure on wild stocks.”
Pressed on why the idea of farming doesn’t appeal to protesters, Mr Hall acknowledged that it was a “difficult question to answer” but that “the industry has invested millions of dollars, and has come a long way in 30 years through investment in good science here and around the world. Government agencies (…) have been involved in an awful amount of science on important topics (such as) the interactions between wild fish and farmed fish. Between farms and the natural environment and we’ve gotten better and better at farming responsibly with the health of wild stocks and the environment at the front of mind.
Watch the video below for the complete interview.
