February 4, 2004
This Isn’t Just About the Fish

Those people can afford to turn their backs on Scotland and fish abroad, but they are not alone in changing their allegiance. They have always been vastly outnumbered by fishermen of more modest means who have returned home fishless in 2003 saying their annual Scottish holiday will not be repeated. That will be a disaster for the tourist industry and for many Scottish river valleys in terms of employment. What the Scottish executive seems to have decided is that the wild Scottish salmon is not worth saving. That would be ludicrous if it was not so serious and short-sighted. In addition, it appears to be besotted with the salmon farming industry and prepared to bend over backwards to protect it from all the criticism of conservationists. In financial terms the fish-farming industry is clearly important to Scotland. Environmentally, though, it has often been a disaster. Mass escapes of farmed fish present a grave threat to the gene pool of wild salmon stocks; fish farms brought the sea lice plague that damaged the wild salmon and sea trout of Scotland’s west coast; and there are dangers of imported diseases.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the industry is the fact that salmon farmers cannot function without vast quantities of tiny sea creatures to turn into food pellets with a view to satisfying the appetite of their stock. The men of Scotland’s beleaguered fishing fleets claim it takes 3 kg to 5 kg of sand eels, pout, and other small sea fish to produce 1 kg of farmed salmon. They complain that the removal of the huge quantities of small fish by industrial trawlers is helping to denude their fishing grounds of other species, including salmon, that depend on the feed fish. The Scottish executive turns a deaf ear to this.

Odd as it may seem, the parliament in Westminster is doing quite a lot to help Scotland’s wild stocks recover. In London, the fisheries minister chipped in £1.25 million of taxpayers’ cash to help the private sector raise the money for a permanent buyout of most of the driftnet salmon fishermen of northeast England. These nets have been catching up to 40,000 salmon a year and 70 to 80 percent of those fish are heading for rivers on Scotland’s east coast.

But if you imagine the Scottish executive was eager to show its gratitude by delving into its pocket, you are wrong. Though Scottish river fishery boards and private individuals have been generous in their support, the executive has not been prepared to contribute a penny. It’s not for want of trying. Andrew Whitehead, secretary of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund (UK), and I have tried hard to convince Allan Wilson, the responsible minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in Scotland, that a precious Scottish heritage is at stake.

Recently I wrote telling him that Scotland should be in the forefront of the NASF’s fundraising campaign. He knows we are promoting fair and voluntary buyout agreements to remove all commercial mixed-stock net fisheries in order to allow the international stocks of wild salmon to rebuild. I reminded him of our efforts all around the North Atlantic—of commercial agreements with the professional fishermen of Greenland, Iceland and the Faroes to protect salmon on the high seas feeding grounds and our progress in Ireland, where quotas have at last been set to curb what is the largest remaining mixed-stock salmon fishery.

I also spoke of Northern Ireland, where the government is to provide three-quarters of our £2 million buyout of their mixed-stock nets, expressing the hope that something similar could be achieved in Scotland. And I suggested he could find ways of supporting the closure of the northeast England nets that would send extra fish into Scottish rivers. I added: "You may wish to share in the cost but, more importantly, it cannot be right that the extra fish should be in turn intercepted by Scottish nets. You might consider contributing to the international funds for salmon conservation. Alternatively, you could use public funds towards the closure of the remainder of Scotland’s mixed-stock nets. Whatever choice you make must involve a radical change in Scottish salmon policy."

Twelve months later the silence is deafening. The executive’s choice has been made. Do nothing. No contribution to the drift net buyout and, worse still, no effort made to bring an end to Scotland’s shameful netting around its coastline. Even today these nets continue to kill more than 30,000 fish just as they approach their native rivers. If the minister was prepared to help the salmon reclaim its rightful place in Scottish rivers he would make a huge contribution to the outdoor activities that his tourist authorities need to promote. Scotland, which was once the world leader in angling tourism, can and should regain that predominance in attracting visiting sportsmen and women with all the economic benefits that position brings. Through the use of compensation plans it is perfectly possible to offset the effects on commercial fishermen’s incomes of stopping both drift-net fishing and coastal salmon netting.

We asked for a sum that seems a pittance compared to the overspend on the parliament building. I wrote: “Quite apart from the natural justice of wanting Scotland to bear its proper share of the costs of salmon conservation, NASF believes that the boost Scotland’s rural communities would enjoy from the returning salmon fully warrants a substantial contribution from the Scottish Office over the next three years.” Our efforts have been rejected, no money has been forthcoming and the destruction of what remains of the wild salmon stock continues. The pity is that the death of these fish adds nothing to the rural economy.

The other day I received a letter from a salmon fisherman who was familiar with the great Scottish rivers and compared them with the Driva in Norway, where stocks have been decimated by the fish fluke, Gyrodactylus salaris. But the result, whether from overfishing or fish fluke, will always be the same, he wrote. “Once the Driva was a truly great salmon river and in the spring it was not uncommon to catch five or more fish in excess of 20lb in a morning,” he wrote. “While the river remains as stunning to look at as it ever was, today it is almost totally fishless. It fills me with despair that rivers like Dee and Spey might end up like this.”

So there it is. Outside the Scottish parliament the conservation torch has fallen in the gutter. Is there really nobody in Scotland who will pick it up and say: this is our fight, too?