Conflicting commercial interests battle for the salmon world market. Ragnar Tveterås, (Right photo by Anne Ditlefsen) Professor of Industrial Economics at the University of Stavanger, encourages Norwegian researchers to stand up and speak out, to avoid Norway’s salmon farming industry having to comply with standards that favour US special interest groups.

Unless Norwegian researchers stand up and speak out, Norway’s salmon farming industry risks having to comply with standards that favour US special interest groups. The standards could raise production costs excluding Norwegian salmon from main markets.

Tveterås delivered his unequivocal word of warning at the HAVBRUK programme’s 2010 aquaculture conference in Trondheim this April, where he said that certain US groups with very deep pockets are determined to shut out farmed salmon from the market.

“These groups particularly target the salmon farming industries of wealthy nations such as Norway, claiming to be protecting consumers, environment and wild salmon from diseases and other problems,” he says.

The players in this international power struggle include activist organisations (NGOs) and powerful grocery conglomerates, such as (left) Marks & Spencer and Wal-Mart. Operating behind the scenes are giant US foundations with billions of dollars in capital.

Fighting over standards
“The power play is taking place through the media and scientific journals, through efforts to influence regulatory decisions taken by the public authorities, and through the establishment of certain product standards.”

“Standards defining acceptable salmon farming practices – everything from feed and selective breeding to fish welfare and environmental considerations – are backed up by certification mechanisms and labelling schemes for approved products,” explains the economics professor. “These standards can be an effective way to achieve desired consumer behaviour.”

“But it is critical that the salmon industry takes part in determining the criteria for these standards, to ensure that they do not impose unreasonable requirements,” he points out.

Industry perspective
While the concept of sustainability does encompass several factors which the salmon industry must take into account, Professor Tveterås emphasises that the criteria can be subjectively defined, depending on one’s perspective as a producer or buyer, NGO or consumer.

For a producer, establishing sustainable practices may entail higher production costs in the short term, but could also minimise a number of economic risks of production: organic stress on the environment, the outbreak of infections, and the risk of being denied access to certain distribution channels and market segments.

Salmon production is stagnating in both the USA and Canada because the industry is embroiled in such deep conflicts with other user interests. Eventually, similar conflicts will escalate between Norway’s aquaculture industry and various competing interests. So the scientific authority of researchers, by way of publishing scientifically, can provide a much needed compass (right) for decision-takers.

Researchers must speak up
But researchers can also be used as pawns in the power game. In North America, forces ideologically opposed to salmon farming have donated billions in the past decade to research and various special interest groups.

“Through their financing, wealthy US foundations influence which issues are addressed by research and which findings are deemed empirically valid. So there are loads of scientific articles that are critical of salmon aquaculture. Some of this is poor science, but the conclusions are nevertheless accepted by scientific journals.”

Professor Tveterås is concerned about how regulators and management agencies looking for knowledge to guide them will distinguish the wheat from the chaff among these articles.

“This is why it is essential that Norwegian researchers take part in the ongoing international debates. Industry and the public administration need reliable, unbiased knowledge based on solid science in order to take rational decisions.”

Ragnar Tveterås further encourages Norwegian researchers to “make themselves visible in the international research arena and step up their publication of findings in international journals.”

Warm waters for haddock, herring and cod
The entire North Atlantic warmed up during the 1920s and 1930s. More fish appeared not only in the Barents Sea, but also off Iceland and Greenland. This warm period reached its peak at the end of the thirties and lasted until roughly 1960, when waters began turning colder again – and fisheries resources declined once more.

In recent years, the North Atlantic has shown signs of a new warming ppperiod. Dr Ken Drinkwater, (left) is senior research scientist at both the Institute of Marine Research and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, located in Bergen. He and colleagues have been studying causes for this latest warming trend –  finding many answers by poring through the literature describing conditions 80-90 years ago.

Then and now
Dr Drinkwater rejects the common explanation that the Barents Sea is getting warmer because the atmosphere in the polar regions has warmed. “This warming is primarily due to currents – a greater amount of warm Atlantic water is flowing into the North Atlantic and up to the Barents Sea,” he asserts.

It is what happened in the first half of the 20th century. Despite large year-to-year temperature fluctuations then, the North Atlantic on the whole remained more temperate than normal until well into the 1960s.

“Many people recorded what they observed taking place in the ocean nearly 90 years ago," says Dr Drinkwater. "If we can determine what occurred during that warming period, we will better understand what is going on today, plus we’ll have more reliable input as to what we can expect in the future.”

More, larger fish, farther north
The warm period between the world wars led to some major changes in the ecosystem. In the Barents Sea and off Iceland and Greenland, the cod catches reached record highs.

“In the 1920s and 1930s, the Arcto-Norwegian cod stock moved north. Fishing of cod was organised around Bjørnøya (Bear Island in the Svalbard archipelago) and more cod were being caught in Russian waters as well. The fishermen were catching cod that were about 50% larger than in the previous decades.”

The Arcto-Norwegian cod were not the only fish affected by the milder ocean waters of that period. Capelin and Arctic cod also relocated farther north. Haddock moved towards Novaya Zemlya in nearby Russia. In the 1930s, Norwegian spring-spawning herring had gravitated so far east that a dedicated Soviet fishery emerged off the coast of Murmansk (right)

Herring was more abundant in the Norwegian Sea than ever before. Off the coast of West Greenland, cod were being hauled in 1,200 kms north of their usual range. Icelandic herring flourished, and continued to do so until the late 1960s – when the herring stock collapsed.

More plankton benefits entire food chain
In explaining how warmer seas could lead to so much more fish in the North Atlantic, all the way to the Arctic, scientists point to the bottom-up effect: Warmer seas result in more phytoplankton, which feeds more zooplankton, (left)  providing more nourishment for the herring and capelin that serve as a food supply for cod and other larger fish. Scientific literature confirms that cod reproduction is typically higher in warm-water years and lower when waters are cold.

Link between ocean temperature and spawning
As part of the recently concluded research project Norwegian Component of the Ecosystem Studies of Sub-Arctic Seas (NESSAS), researchers Svein Sundby and Odd Nakken studied the relationship between ocean temperature and cod spawning.

When the two charted spawning along the Norwegian coast in a 1900-1976 timeline, the correlation was unmistakable: In coldwater years, southern coastal areas were of highest importance. When waters warmed up, spawning was most active in the northern areas. Seen over time, their research showed that cod reproductivity was markedly higher when the ocean warmed up, and that spawning moved north.

Spawning grounds off northern Norway
Since 2003, Arcto-Norwegian cod (right) have been observed spawning once again along the coast of Finnmark, Norway’s northernmost county. This had not seen since the early 1960s.

Recently, cod catches in the Barents Sea have been on the rise. Within the last few years, catch levels have reached those of the 1920s &1930s warm period. Off Iceland and Greenland, however, no corresponding increase has been recorded.

Research indicates that knowledge about natural climatic variations in fish stocks deserves a role in the future management of the northern fisheries resources.

US observations corroborate
The correlation between warming ocean waters and more fish (left) has also been investigated in a comparative study carried out by the NESSAS researchers in collaboration with US researchers.

They have compared developments in three ocean areas: off the coast of Norway, in the waters of the Gulf of Maine (off the northeast coast of the US), and off Alaska and in the Bering Sea (between Alaska and Russia).

“This comparative study has been interesting,” says Dr Drinkwater, “in that the causal factors are completely different for the warming of these three northern seas. Yet in each area, warmer waters have led to longer growing seasons, more plankton and more fish.”