World Wildlife Fund supporting anti-salmon farming campaign
On its website, the San Francisco based Pacific Environment organization recently announced the publication of a new Farmed Salmon Brochure in Russian. Credited with the original material, the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform- a vociferous British Columbia- based ENGO has produced an english version of the "Think Twice! Is It Worth Buying Farmed Salmon" brochure, now available in Russian. Figuring prominently on the front page of the brochure, CAAR's "Farmed and Dangerous" logo leaves no doubt as to the origin of the material.
Alongside the CAAR logo at the back of the brochure is the unmistakable WWF Panda bear, together with the Pacific Environment, the "Wild Salmon Center" logo and those of other ENGO's. While the english version of the "Think Twice! Is It Worth Buying Farmed Salmon" brochure is shown on the CAAR web site for downloading, it is currently not available. Pacific Environment claims that the Russian version of the brochure is "one of the first tools available for Kamchatka coastal fishermen and fisheries advocates to educate consumers about salmon aquaculture issues and make the case for sustainable wild fisheries in Russia."
The World Wildlife Fund is currently involved in a series of dialogues with various sectors of the aquaculture industry, including farmed salmon aquaculture. The main goals of this initiative are to:
- Develop and implement verifiable environmental and social performance levels that measurably reduce or eliminate key impacts of salmon farming and are acceptable to stakeholders.
- Recommend standards that achieve these performance levels while permitting the salmon farming industry to remain economically viable
While the participants in the Salmon Aquaculture Dialogue process have agreed that "industry, NGO's and other stakeholders will continue their work while the Dialogue is on-going", it begs to wonder if the WWF would also provide funding for the translation of promotional material for the aquaculture industry- in order to remain the neutral broker that the Dialogue process needs.
According to Pacific Environment, the Russian version of the CAAR brochure discusses a number of issues related to farmed salmon like:
- health-related issues, such as colorants added to farmed fish;
- economic impacts on coastal communities, depending on healthy wild salmon runs and stable fish markets for their livelihood;
- environmental impacts, such as increases in sea lice parasites for wild fish;
- and alternatives, like developing sustainable wild salmon fisheries.
