Marine Harvest says environmental impacts are a key concern in all its activities, and the company wants to strengthen the focus on sustainable fish farming with leading environmental standards.

It says the partnership agreement with WWF-Norway will help Marine Harvest in its work with environmental challenges.

The secretary general (CEO) Rasmus Hansson of WWF-Norway believes that this partnership will create new opportunities for both organisations.

"Through this agreement, Marine Harvest and WWF-Norway will reduce the impact of Marine Harvest production on the environment and the industry as a whole while ensuring the economic sustainability of the production," says Hansson.

"Farming of species such as salmon and cod can have serious environmental impact, therefore we are very glad to work with one of the world's leading seafood companies."

"Marine Harvest has a strong view that the farming of safe, healthy and sustainable fish is a business for the future. We have through several years had WWF as a dialogue partner in raising important issues in fish farming. We are formalising our cooperation with WWF-Norway in order to increase the fact-based understanding of the aquaculture business," says Åse Aulie Michelet, CEO of Marine Harvest.

WWF-Norway is one of Norway's most influential environmental conservation organisations and its marine programme has been working on aquaculture and fish farming for over a decade. WWF's mission is to conserve nature, biodiversity, and ecological processes while ensuring the sustainable use of renewable resources. WWF-Norway says it therefore recognises the potential value to society of aquaculture in terms of providing food security, revenue and an alternative food source to wild-caught fish.

The partnership between WWF-Norway and Marine Harvest is signed for three years and is unique in the history of both organisations. WWF-Norway will, under this agreement, have the resources to employ a full-time marine conservation officer who will work with aquaculture.

MH and WWF-Norway have the following shared objectives under this agreement:

Protection of marine and freshwater biological diversity.

Significant reduction of the ecological footprint and environmental effects of MHs operations.

Minimise climate change impacts from fish farming activities and processing.

www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish FISHupdate magazine, Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.

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