This article is from page 9 of the 2012-12-18 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 9 JPG
A BOYCOTT on all farmed salmon caught off the Irish coast has been called for in protest against plans by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) to license the creation of a large salmon fish farm off the Clare coast.
Environmental group Friends of the Irish Environment called for all of its followers to boycott Irish farmed salmon in the run up to Christmas. The call was made Thursday, hours before the Irish Wildlife Trust came out against the proposed fish farm.
It is as yet unclear what impact, if any, the boycott will have on farmed salmon producers in the run up to Christmas – the busiest time of the year for sales of salmon in Ireland.
According to Friends of the Irish Environment, the planned fish farm should not go ahead until the difficulty with sea lice on Irish fish farms has been resolved.
“The initiative contradicts the moratorium on fish farms agreed under the National Development Plan’s Irish Seafood National Program 2007 to 2013,” said a spokesperson.
“This ruled that no increase in pro- duction would take place until the sea lice issue had been addressed. A recent report from Inland Fisheries Ireland showed that in fact mortalities from wild salmon from farmed salmon sea lice have now reached 39 per cent of the returning wild salmon.”
The proposed fish farm has been hugely controvertial since details of the proposal first emerged more than six weeks ago. It has two State agencies – Bord Iascaigh Mhara and the Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) in direct conflict.
BIM claim that the farm could creat as many as 500 jobs in the locality while the IFI believe that a more realistic jobs target would be less that 50, while it also believes that pollution created by the farm could threaten inland fishery resources in North Clare and South Galway.
Irish Wildlife Trust confirmed on Thursday that they have made a submission to the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney (FG) outlining their opposition to the project. Minister Coveney will decide in the new year if BIM can allow groups to tender for the license to create a fish farm off the Fanore coast.