The Norwegian Salmon Industry: An Unwelcome Guest.
With slogans like “These Are Not Your Waters” and “Go Home, Norway,” Indigenous peoples, local communities, and international environmentalists are using occupations, protests, and legal action to make their voices heard. This is part of a global battle against Norwegian agribusiness giants that continues across multiple countries, some of which have also introduced laws to ban or restrict the industry.
For years, Scotland’s salmon industry has sold an image of cold, clean seas and “responsibly farmed” fish. Behind that marketing, regulators have been sitting on welfare inspection reports detailing mass mortalities, gruesome failures and shocking conditions on farms linked to supermarket favourites Co‑op and Marks & Spencer.
In a little more than 50 years, the population of wild North Atlantic salmon has plummeted by 75%. Today, it is estimated that fewer than 60,000 exist in and around Iceland. Unless we do something soon, we may be condemning what Icelandic environmentalist and wild fish advocate Orri Vigfússon has called the “king of fish” to extinction.
The rejection of salmon farms from the Beagle Channel to Buenos Aires, with a banner displaying the message “No to Salmon Farms in the Argentine Sea” surprised passersby this week in front of the Norwegian Embassy in Buenos Aires.