WHAT is the most seemingly unlikely location for a salmon farm in Scotland?
I am two hours’ walk from the nearest road on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis.
There are no sounds here, minus the wind, the waves and the chirping of wrens. On the horizon, beyond the white sand and turquoise water, I can see the dim outlines of St Kilda and the Flannan Isles.
The only reminder of reality is some plastic debris that has washed ashore, including a long black pipe – a feeding tube from a salmon farm.
My guide, Ian Buchanan, a local from the nearest village of Brenish, points to the rocky hillside, under which Norwegian Mountain Salmon (NMS) plans to build a 90,000-ton salmon farm. This is around 10 times larger than any salmon farm in Scotland.
Plans include a quay for the boats to dock and an underground network of tunnels that would house more than 200 tanks. Two pipes, heading out one mile into the sea in different directions, would pump cold fresh water in and out of the tanks.
In its advertising material from October 2023, NMS says it will provide “500 million salmon dinners from a site barely visible”, and proposes to start construction in 2028.
“It’s an unspoiled part of the island,” says Buchanan. “It’s the wild, scenic part, and they just want to destroy it.”
While there are several fish farms further north on the west coast of Lewis, there are none in this stretch, that covers at least 100 miles. NMS has turned its attention to this remote spot after it reportedly failed to secure Scottish Government funding to conduct feasibility studies in Shetland.
Buchanan, as one of a small group of divers on the island, feels the clock is now ticking to record as many of the marine species in the area that he can find, and prove the stakes are high.
Some might argue that NMS is unlikely to proceed with its plans. For example, on the east coast of Lewis, the council recently refused an application from Bakkafrost and the company is appealing.
Furthermore, Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) confirmed that it has not provided any funding to NMS – so far.
A HIE spokesperson says, “We would not disclose information about a funding application from any company until one has been approved and a contract in place.”
HIE added that Norwegian companies can apply for funding, however, as long as the project operates locally, pays the real living wage, and boosts the regional economy under UK subsidy rules.
In Lewis and beyond, the Scottish Government is keen to expand the salmon farm industry. Former cabinet secretary Mairi Gougeon said in March that no new regulation was needed, despite campaigners’ ongoing concerns around sea lice, poor fish welfare, and high mortality rates.
Buchanan is familiar with many of these issues first hand. When he moved back home to the island in 2014, he took on work at a fish farm as a diver. His job was to check the salmon nets for repairs, and use machinery to suck out the dead fish that had sunk to the bottom of the pens. What he saw during those few months, he says, has stayed with him.
“It was like swimming with the living dead,” Buchanan says. “Normally fish are frightened by you; they try to swim away. But they swam right up to you [in the pens]. Their gills were frayed; they were being eaten alive by lice. It was horrible.”
Since then, Buchanan has not eaten farmed fish and has tried to discourage those around him from doing so.
NMS materials say that the company prevents sea lice via its modern technology and on-land tanks, it provides circular treatment of waste, and a high degree of water replacement ensures animal welfare.
However, the new underground site would consume a lot of energy – at peak, 50 megawatts, equivalent to powering just under half the houses in Glasgow. The salmon farm would also need back-up generators, that typically run on diesel or gas, to ensure constant oxygenation and water filtration.
“The brochures show nice pictures of the Atlantic, but it’s blue-washing,” Buchanan insists.
I am not the first person Buchanan has taken to the site; other visitors include Don Staniford, a prominent campaigner against salmon farms, known as the “kayak vigilante”. Several salmon companies have taken legal action against him.
After a two-hour walk back to Brenish, following deer tracks and passing otter holts, I stay at a local guest house. On the breakfast menu, I am asked to circle what I want. One option is scrambled eggs and salmon.
The owner, Ivor Mills, insists he only eats farmed salmon if it would otherwise go to waste; he says he has plenty of other options – he can dive for scallops, and local meat includes geese, rabbit, pork, beef and venison.
“[The salmon farm] is all motivated by money,” he adds, pulling out his calculator to show me his theory: if a whole salmon has a current retail value of £70, and there are 250 salmon per ton, then the company stands to turn over £1.5 billion per year.
NMS estimates its pre-tax earnings will be around £231 million.
When I ask Mills what he thinks about the new salmon farm potentially bringing jobs to the island, he says it’s the lack of houses, not jobs, that are the main problem – his wife works at the hospital, for example, and they struggle to recruit staff.
NMS says it’s looking for a local partner to build “attractive housing options” for construction workers and estimates it will employ 150-190 permanent workers.
After a breakfast of toast and marmalade, I meet Steve Bishop, chair of Seasearch Scotland, and his wife Caroline. The couple moved to Lewis during Covid.
Not only are they in the middle of a house renovation but they are also organising groups of volunteer divers to survey the local waters and document priority marine features.
Bishop shows me his photographs of a rare fan mussel, native oysters, celtic feather stars, marbled crabs, sea cucumbers, starfish and dogfish, among many other species.
“We’ve dived all over the UK, and nothing is a patch on here,” says Caroline Bishop. “The clarity of the water, the variety of species, it’s unbelievable.”
They show me pictures of maerl, a pink crusted formation that takes thousands of years to form, the Scottish equivalent of a coral reef. I also see images of maerl upstream from a salmon farm, bleached white and yellow.
The divers have found sand eels, much-needed food for seabirds, like arctic terns, but the divers say it’s tricky to photograph such fast swimmers. Sand eels are also particularly affected by disruption to their sediment habitat.
“Everybody is distraught,” says Caroline Bishop of the new salmon farm. “It’s caused rifts in the village as a small minority are pushing for it.”
The divers don’t want to disclose where they dive, particularly the locations of maerl and sea grass, as they are worried “bad actors” may deliberately disturb the site for commercial benefits.
But despite the time pressure to press on with their project, the logistics to arrange more dives are overwhelming, they say.
Apart from the Bishops, there are only a small handful of experienced Seasearch divers on the island, including Buchanan. Caroline Bishop explains that three or four people are needed for a dive: one to manage the boat, one to help others into the boat with their heavy gear, and two people to dive together.
Finding a time that suits everyone is tricky, and the diving season can be short. They have only been diving near the new salmon farm site three or four times, due to bad weather. One time, on a calm day, a change of tide meant they lost control of Buchanan’s boat and almost had to call the coastguard.
But it’s not the weather currently holding them back. The Bishops need to repair their dive suits, and that costs a few hundred pounds and a delivery from the mainland.
“We’re all also in our sixties; it’s getting harder,” Caroline Bishop says. “As much as I’ve tried, it’s been difficult to get younger people involved. And if we train them, that’s time taken away from diving ourselves. And by the point a new diver is trained up, it might be too late.”
She adds: “I feel like it’s such a big task so I have to step back and focus on doing what we can – diving and submitting the data, because this is like a needle in a haystack in terms of finding these species before they are destroyed.”
Caroline Bishop says that all of the marine species they have recorded further up the eastern coastline of Lewis would be affected by the potential salmon farm near Brenish. This is due to the site’s proposed pipelines that would be 40 metres deep and head one mile out to sea.
“For us, walking two hours [from Brenish] to the [new proposed] location is quite far. For the sea, that distance is nothing,” she says. “If you start dumping tonnes of rock [at the new site], this whole side of the coast will be affected.”
The local divers have submitted dozens of forms to Seasearch, but there is, according to Steve Bishop, a huge backlog of data waiting to be submitted and made available online.
This follows Marine Conservation Scotland formally separating from Seasearch last year, and Seasearch becoming an independent, non-profit Community Interest Company (CIC).
“We were formed at the end of March, and are just finding our way,” Steve Bishop explains, adding that the CIC has gained funding from NatureScot. “We are in the process of taking over the databases, but there is a backlog of data that needs to be entered, but we’re working on it.”
The divers are not only concerned about the salmon farm. They insist that risks to wildlife and priority marine features are compounded by plans to build an offshore windfarm off the west coast of Lewis, called Spirit na Mara, or “spirit of the sea”.
The farm will contain 60, 300-metre-high turbines, and generate 900 megawatts. Local councillors have opposed the plans, and now the Scottish Government will make the final decision.
Furthermore, locals are concerned about potential plans to build an ammonia conversion plant on an island in the middle of Loch Roag, not far from the popular Callanish standing stones. The plant would produce fertiliser, a product that has been highlighted since the US-Iran war started.
Plans for the salmon farm, the wind farm and the ammonia plant are all in very early stages, yet it tells of how industry on the island has changed since Buchanan was a boy in Brenish village. In his childhood, the common grazings were “crawling” with sheep. Now there are hardly any.
Buchanan’s father used to poach salmon to make an income for his six children. Buchanan says there were nine nets down at the local bay and you could catch up to 50 salmon a day. Now they are rare.
“As a boy we had salmon for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We salted it, ate it in sandwiches. I was sick to the back teeth of eating it,” he says. “Now, I’d give my right arm to eat salmon – a fresh, wild one, that is.”
NMS did not respond to a request for comment.
