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Collapse of the co-operation agreement between wild fish interests and fish farmers in salmon farming’s heartland has been blamed on the aquaculture companies’ failure to honour commitments.
The decision by wild fish interests in Argyll to formally withdraw their support from a co-operation agreement with local fish farming companies has prompted the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards (ASFB) to question the viability of the Scottish Government’s flagship policy of fostering local dialogue and agreements to resolve differences between wild fish interests and the aquaculture industry in the west Highlands and Islands.
The collapse of the Lower Lorn Area Management Agreement is blamed on the serial failure of one side to the agreement to honour its commitments.
Andrew Wallace, Managing Director of ASFB, said: “Much time, money and effort have been invested in area management agreements (AMAs) over many years but in Lower Lorn the spotlight has now been put on the fragility of these agreements in no uncertain terms.
“After repeated abuses of the Lower Lorn Agreement by the salmon farming companies, wild fisheries bodies have had no other option but to withdraw.”
Mr Wallace continued: “It had been hoped that the issue of impacts on wild fish by salmon aquaculture could have been resolved and worked through by negotiation. In some situations some progress has been made.
“However, the general intransigence by parts of the Scottish salmon farming industry, the failure of some companies to abide by conditions set out in AMAs and the industry's failure to give even the slightest credence to the widely understood view that industrial scale fish farming can and does, in certain places, impact migratory fisheries, is starting to seriously undermine this whole approach to managing salmon farm impacts.”
Roger Brook, chairman of the Argyll District Salmon Fishery Board, said: “The demise of the Lower Lorn AMA has been caused by the repeated failure of the fish farmers to honour the agreement particularly when it is commercially inconvenient. I believe that wild fish signatories to the AMA were entirely justified in saying ‘enough is enough’. If any one party is only paying lip-service to what they have signed up to, then clearly it is futile to continue.”
Confidentiality clauses in the Lower Lorn AMA preclude wild fish interests from publishing details of breaches of the agreement.
Formed in 2006, the Lower Lorn AMA encompassed some 75 miles of coastline including the sea lochs Crinan, Craignish, Melfort and Feochan as well as all the significant freshwater systems (notably the Nell, Feochan, Euchar, Oude and Add rivers) flowing into this area.
The aims of the AMA were the promotion and implementation of measures for the maintenance of healthy stocks of both wild and farmed fish in the area and the restoration of wild salmon and sea trout stocks and provision for synchronised production and fallowing of the area’s marine fish farms within the management area by 2008.
Synchronous sea lice treatments began in 2005 with a target of zero adult female sea lice per farmed fish between February and June- the critical time for the wild smolts migrating to sea; at other times the farms were required to “aspire to” the lowest possible sea lice levels.
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