Book Review

October-November 2006

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Alan Wilson

For those who didn’t have to sit through the propwash of the fish farm industry and their promoters in government during the year-long Salmon Aquaculture Review in 1996-97, Peter Robson’s new book, Salmon Farming: The Whole Story, might seem balanced and comprehensive. But having been a member of that Review Committee and having followed the fish farm issue closely for over a decade, I have to say that this book is anything but.

Since Robson presents it as a complete and balanced view (“to separate fact from propaganda”), it must be held to the highest standard—a level it doesn’t reach.

Robson relied largely on government and industry sources for information, as is evident from his citations and acknowledgments. 20 out of 22 people acknowledged were from the fish farm industry or its support services, or from the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, the BC government department that promotes and supports development of the industry. Why didn’t he consult with the Ministry of Environment which is charged with monitoring the pollution side of aquaculture?

The scientists who have done the real peer-reviewed science on the issue, like Dr. John Volpe, Dr. Peter Tyedmers, Dr. Rosamond Naylor, Dr. Marty Krkosek and others weren’t even consulted. And neither were many other non-academic experts who could have contributed much to correct the one-sideness of the book.

Robson dismisses Alexandra Morton’s peer-reviewed science which demonstrates how fish farm-hosted sea lice threaten the survival of juvenile wild salmon, instead defending non-peer-reviewed, government-sponsored science instead, saying “it would be patently unfair to question the integrity of government scientists...”

Absolutely inexcusable is the failure to acknowledge widespread First Nations opposition to fish farming, particularly to farm siting.
Except for one of the images he took himself, all of the images Robson uses to start each of the chapters were supplied by the aquaculture industry. Out of 70 other photos, charts and graphs in the book, over 50 were supplied by the industry or government and most of the rest were ones Robson took at fish farms. We could only find three photos provided by anyone who could be considered a critic of the industry.

He quotes chapter and verse the regulations which are on the government’s books, but he seems not to realize that with enfeebled monitoring and enforcement, even these rules mean little.

Robson’s book does correctly identify the hazards of modern agribiz: how it exploits nature, uses toxic chemicals, and externalizes environmental damages. But he argues that since this is the way of modern agriculture, we can hardly complain if fish farmers do it. He fails to note that salmon farming is fundamentally different because it raises carnivores not herbivores, and uses our ‘commons’, flushing drugs and wastes directly into our ocean, unlike terrestrial agriculture which is at least based on private lands.

If you want a more realistic picture of the situation, read A Stain Upon the Sea by Stephen Hume, Alexandra Morton, Betty C. Keller, Rosella M. Leslie, Otto Langer, Don Staniford. Published by Harbour Publishing, ISBN 1- 55017-317-0, 288 pp, b/w photos, $26.95. www.harbourpublishing.com.

And visit www.FarmedandDangerous.org, the website of the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR), as well as the websites of leading CAAR-member groups such as the Georgia Strait Alliance. See GSA’s comprehensive Salmon Aquaculture Report Card, an excellent 75 page PDF document with color images: www.GeorgiaStrait.org.

Also look at the proceedings of the BC government’s Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture. For example, in their Nanaimo hearing, Lloyd Erickson who is recently retired from the Ministry of Environment, testified on fish farm wastes, and Laurie MacBride of the Georgia Strait Alliance explained the failure of public processes on this issue over many years. (See page 51 for more on the hearings.)
Then decide who’s telling “the whole story”.