Some reflections on the year just gone.

Another interesting article from regular columnist Ewan Kennedy from Argyll.

Some reflections on the year just gone.

My older friends already know that from quite an early age I’ve held a strong belief in the non-existence of a god. The seed may have been planted by those students who emerged from the MacBrayne Hall one Sunday morning in 1959 when the Brother and I were on our way to Sunday School, with polished faces and Bibles in our hands. They told us not to believe something just because an adult said it. Later at University I found others with similar views, and discovered that thunderbolts don’t fall when you make up  your own mind in matters of belief. 

None of my experience since has caused me to doubt my belief that the human race has an unlimited capacity for evil and some capacity for good, all without divine assistance. Statements by senior Russian clerics supporting the destruction of Ukraine only add some spice to a mix that’s already there.

I’m extremely relieved that I have lived in a place and time when I can write this without fear; in Scotland three hundred years ago I’d have been hanged. I find it very troubling that this year has seen supposedly civilised Scots abusing each other in public life and on social media in ways which would have done credit to a witch-finder. The current enthusiasm in some quarters for limiting freedom of expression is utterly abhorrent.

I’m now well into my final quarter and the year just past has undoubtedly seen the human race at its most destructive in my time, perhaps in all of our history. Our human capacity for destruction has not been limited to deliberate aggression in Ukraine and other parts of the World, such as Palestine and Libya; as a race we are doing our best to destroy the natural environment, often for no other purpose but our momentary pleasures. 

Closer to home I cite the gigantic aquaculture industry, which in recent decades has colonised our West coast. Our Scottish Government has given permission for massive corporations to place intensive feeding units in about two hundred and fifty locations, using the seabed, one of our most precious public assets, as a dumping ground for organic waste mixed with pesticides and antibiotics (8.9 tonnes of the latter in 2021). 

The insatiable demand among urban populations for products such as smoked salmon has pushed this greedy industry to production levels that are totally unsustainable. It will be many months before full figures are available for 2022, but it’s destined to be the worst on record for the deaths of salmon due to disease and overcrowding. What we do know is that on some farms premature deaths in some months are as high as 500 tonnes. In 2019 a total of 25,722 tonnes went to waste; it’s likely to exceed 40,000 tonnes for the whole of 2022. To get this into perspective, at Ardmaddy in 2011 230 tonnes of salmon died in an attempt to cure them of gill disease. This resulted in a complaint to the European Commission, which I registered on behalf of the saveseilsound campaign group. Four years later the result was a change in our law, requiring proper reporting and an end to dumping dead fish in landfill sites open to the elements, local seabirds and wildlife, and of course disgusting to local residents. One hundred times that quantity now travels on our roads each year for specialist disposal. 

Last year’s dead salmon will have been fed on perhaps 100,000 tonnes of what the industry calls “trash fish” that have been hoovered up by supertrawlers from the coastal waters of far off lands. Destruction of local fisheries  in places like Senegal has even led to desperate people turning to piracy.

As individuals we can’t do much about Ukraine, but we sure as hell can stop eating farmed salmon and suggest that our friends stop too. Lots of information is available from organisations such as Wild Fish and individual campaigners such as Don Staniford and Corin Smith.

Turning to more cheerful matters, for me the best things this year were the cheerful muster some old friends had in late Spring, sailing and rowing boats most of us had made ourselves, based on a wee island with great craic agus ceòl agus òrain, our twentieth and probably the last year we’ll do it. Also meeting new friends through pursuing the Gaelic language and culture at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on Skye and Dunollie Castle and Furan at the Tallachan Chorran in Oban.

MY COMMENTS

I found the information contained in Ewan’s article very disturbing. I like smoked salmon. I even had some in my New Year meal. It would not have happened if I had read Ewan’s article beforehand. I knew there were problems but I never realised the quantities or the widespread nature of the problems. Action needs taken and urgently if we are to avoid tainting for all time our reputation for quality and pure produce. I believe a Norwegian company dominates this practice. I write and publish regularly articles complimentary to Scandinavia. My thanks to Ewan for bringing this to the public’s and my own attention. A lot of this product is exported by air from, wait for it, Heathrow Airport so there is not a lot of contribution to Scotland economically either. We seem to have cornered the environmentally damaging side of the industry.

I am, as always

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