Our appetite for farmed fish has many consequences, few of them beneficial. Fish farms pollute their immediate environment and require huge amounts of feedstuff in the form of other marine life, as well as so called ‘cleaner fish’. They provide only a few jobs locally, being heavily automated, and are usually owned by multinational corporations so that the profits go elsewhere. We have just received the news that The Scottish Salmon Company (SSC) has resubmitted its application to expand the St Molios salmon fish farm in Lamlash Bay with even larger cages than the first (withdrawn) application..
Meanwhile Sue Weaver from Kildonan has reached the Port of London on her circumnavigation of Britain in the sailing vessel Sea Dragon, researching and highlighting the major problem of plastic in the ocean.
Both of these issues, fish farm pollution and plastic pollution, require changes at governmental and individual levels. Only when we as individuals begin to object to single-use plastics such as in bottled water and soft drinks and supermarket wrappings, and begin to look more closely at how our food is produced, will manufacturers and governments take notice.
We have more on both of these stories in this edition of the Voice, and much else besides.