What does activist ban mean for salmon farms and public?

With Scottish parliamentary committee salmon farm inquiry coming to an end last week and its report due out soon, there’s plenty to watch in the world of salmon. A court decision last week, however, has  estabilished a shift in how the activists who have made it their business to observe salmon farms may have to conduct themselves.

Don Staniford, sometimes dubbed "the kayak vigilante" lost his final appeal against an interdict lodged against him by Norwegian-owned salmon farmer MOWI.  I’ve been following his story since I went to the Isle of Ulva to shadow his surveillance of a Bakkafrost salmon farm, where a mass mortality event was unfolding. 

Staniford is now banned from the pens of salmon farms, and it looks possible he will ultimately be excluded from doing the on-farm GoPro filming that has been a key part of his campaigning more widely.  Last week’s decision means that he is permanently banned from kayaking up to MOWI salmon farm pens and getting on the cages. 

For salmon farmers, this represents a victory - and many on social media have argued that this is self-evidently justified as a trespassing issue, Following the decision the Norway-owned salmon farm operator said it would continue to protect its employees and property from people who seek to “follow in the footsteps” of the activist.

“I’m extremely disappointed,” said Staniford. “It sets a dangerous precedent - and will have a chilling effect.”

(Image: Scamon Scotland)

But what does it mean for Staniford, and for other activists, snooping citizen scientists and even the public? I asked Malcolm Combe, a senior lecturer in law at Strathclyde University who attended the court session last week.  He said: “He cannot now act against the terms of the interdict at the (I think) 47 affected MOWI sites, that is to say he cannot enter on or interfere with “all structures, docks, walkways, buildings, floats or pens of relevant sites belonging to the pursuer”.

Combe also noted that it would “likely represent a low watermark” for any other salmon farm operators if they seek an interdict in similar terms.

For Staniford it is likely to lead to further banning. He is already pursued by two legal actions, involving Scottish Sea Farms and Bakkafrost Scotland, which had  been postponed pending his appeals. The Bakkafrost case is scheduled to be heard in December at Dunoon Sheriff Court. 

READ MORE: Scottish salmon farms using SLAPP actions to ban activist

And what does it mean for the rest of us? Combe said: “It’s not too revolutionary a result in property law terms, and folks will still be able to engage in public navigation e.g. by a kayak near a fish farm, it’s just that no-one will be able to board or moor next to a fish farm without facing a similar interdict.

A wider question is whether it will mean the end for surveillance salmon farm activism. However, that seems unlikely since increasingly this operates around drone footage, rather than GoPro imagery.  Staniford had already had the MOWI interdict amended to delete references to drones or approaching within 15 metres of a site.

Drone footage has, it should be noted, been responsible for bringing some key salmon stories over the past year, including the leakage of fuel following the sinking of a fish farm vessel in the sound of Mull.

Former salmon farm worker Jamie Moyes camped out for seven weeks, sleeping in a van and filming and watching the recovery, and triggered a campaign that saw many supermarkets stop selling salmon from that farm.

COP29, a disaster? But what about plastic?

Few COP climate conferences have ended on a note of positivity, but the COP29 conference last week in Baku seems to have concluded on a particularly bitter note.

With developing nations calling the agreement “stage-managed” and “an optical illusion”,  it didn’t do much to inspire hope - particularly in a world in which the biggest greenhouse gas polluter is set to be led by a President who has called climate change a “scam”. 

Many have described it as disappointing because it turned out to be what might be called a cop-out by developing nations when it came to global climate finance to support their transition to clean energy.  The annual $1.3 trillion that developed countries had been pushing for was ultimately left in as a hollowed-out target, with only $300 billion in finance fully pledged.

When it comes to the family of environmental crises, plastic so often feels like the younger sibling who gets ignored, or whose bad behaviour is simply eye-rolled and tolerated. 

But this week, hot on the heels of COP29, plastic, also a product of the oil and gas revolution, is to be the focus of global attention as 175 governments gather in Busan, South Korea to start the final round of global negotiations in Busan, South Korea, for a Global Plastics Treaty to end plastic pollution. 

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Plastic is certainly not something we can claim global leadership on.  Scotland and the UK still has no deposit return scheme and every day in Scotland, two million bottles are sold every day, and household recycling rates have been merely around 45% for a decade. 

Meanwhile, the UK continues to export huge quantities of plastic waste. Whilst many other developed countries have decreased such exports in recent years the UK’s plastic waste exports have risen by 7% from 527,704 tonnes in 2020 to 566,914 tonnes in 2023 - with the bulk of these chiefly heading to Turkey. 

(Image: Pixabay)

Here in the UK, and Scotland, we must do more. Last month, 28 civil society organisations in Scotland, including Friends of the Earth Scotland and Marine Conservation Society, wrote to the First Minister to ask him to show public support for the strongest possible version of the treaty and step up action at home.

Kim Pratt from Friends of the Earth Scotland said, as the negotiations start: “The Scottish Government needs to make good on its promise to tackle the plastics crisis. The First Minister recently confirmed the Scottish Government’s full support for the Global Plastics Treaty, but it is failing to take the necessary action to stop plastic pollution at home.

“The circular economy law will only be effective if it’s followed by action to fundamentally change the way we use materials. Measures that are in place today, such as recycling and selective product bans, have proven insufficient. Solutions must address the root cause of the crisis including how plastics are produced and sold.”

Insufficient is the key word. Wherever we look - plastics or emissions reduction - we aren't doing enough.