Salmon farmers in B.C. losing P.R. battle
Following the release last month of a report by the B.C. Government appointed Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture, Canadian ENGO's have embarked on a media blitz in an attempt to persuade the public that the recommendations from the report should be adopted. This would mean the end of salmon farming as currently practiced.
Last week, the popular B.C. local Global TV station aired a report on salmon farming in B.C. that might as well have been written by the most anti-salmon farming activists in B.C. It was a very one-sided story about the danger salmon farms supposedly represent for wild salmon, tourism and the environment in general. No input from the salmon farming industry was incorporated in the story.
This week, the National magazine Macleans ran a similar story- again with no input from industry other than a brief mention of two farmed salmon suppliers that are trying to either produce organic salmon or to deliver farmed salmon from a land-based farm. The article quotes a representative of the Vancouver-based David Suzuki Foundation stating that he can "rattle off a number of B.C. farms that are implementing closed-container systems over the next year or so".
The ENGO community in Canada (particularly those based in B.C.) clearly has an advantage over industry organizations when it comes to media relations. Philanthrophic foundations in the U.S. pump millions of dollars into Canadian ENGO's every year in an attempt to promote Alaskan "wild" salmon and to discredit farmed salmon. Canadian salmon farmers organizations have limited resources to counter these onslaughts.
One of the main recommendations by the B.C. Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture was to put all finfish farms into some sort of ocean-based closed containment system- yet to be developed. The Committee was dominated by the current opposition party, which has historically aligned its policies with the extreme ENGO community.
