Farmed Salmon Company Greenwashing With Sports Sponsorships & Beach Cleanups, And The Scots Are Not Having It
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Salmon farming is an economic success story in Scotland where it is the leading food export, and contributed nearly £1 billion to the Scottish economy last year, a 25 percent rise from 2021. Mowi has plans to grow globally by producing 600,000 tonnes of salmon a year in 2029, up 20 percent from current levels. Mowi is expanding in Scotland too. In February this year, the company bought two uninhabited islands off Scotland’s west coast for an estimated £2.5 million, with the aim of building new salmon farms and developing tourism.
But the industry has received widespread criticism for the environmental damage its open-net fish farms cause to marine life through the use of toxic anti-sea lice chemicals, and the nutrient pollution from uneaten feed and fish faeces. Residents who live close to Mowi’s salmon farm on the sea inlet Loch Duich, near the village of Plockton in the West Highlands, say they are bombarded by bad smells, noise, and light pollution. Decomposing fish is left in large bins by the farm, they say, and a loud electricity generator powers air pumps to generate oxygen for the salmon, which are often densely packed on Scottish fish farms.
“The water here is like soup,” says Philp, a creel fisherman of 35 years, who works and lives on Loch Duich. “When the tide turns and flows through the fish farms, it washes the effluent and excrement out,” he explains, resulting in nutrient pollution that has been documented to cause harm to marine life on the seabed near salmon farms. In Loch Duich, Philp says the delousing chemicals used by Mowi to address sea lice infestations kill the crustaceans caught by creel fishers – shellfish such as crabs, lobsters and prawns. “Velvet crabs are pretty much extinct anywhere near fish farms,” he adds. “There’s a general consensus in the fishing community that they are the first casualty of the delousing treatments.”
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In an email to DeSmog, Mowi Scotland said it employs 1,600 staff in the Scottish Highlands, Islands and Fife, in “remote and rural” areas. “Often the main employer in the area, our staff are also integral to the community,” spokesperson Helen Ross told DeSmog, “Wherever we can, we strive not only to support the local community but also to improve it, either by donating time, money, equipment or, of course, salmon.” Ariane Burgess, a Scottish Green Member of Parliament, is concerned that Mowi’s economic power and influence in the area makes it harder for communities to raise objections. “People don’t feel that they can be critical, because that’s who’s paying them, for their jobs and for their shinty clubs and strips,” she said.
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https://www.desmog.com/2025/12/16/they-dont-give-a-damn-scotlands-highland-communities-tire-of-charm-offensive-by-polluting-salmon-giant-mowi/