salmon farming began welcome to bbc news — broadcasting to viewers here around 50 years ago. addressing supporters, in north america and around the globe. mr modi said it was a big today, there are more than 200 my name is duncan golestani. victory for democracy. our top stories: farms producing tens of millions of fish every year. us officials announce 17 new charges i'm against wikileaks founder — julian assange — as he continues to fight extradition. the industry is proud india's prime minister, narendra modi, wins another of its environmental record and says 5—year term in a landslide victory it's performing well. for his hindu nationalist party. a violent tornado has caused heavy damage in the us state female narrator: our salmon is farmed in scotland's at least three people of missouri, killing at least three people. cold, clear waters. are dead after a series the state capital was also hit. and we make sure we look of tornadoes swept across rescue teams are carrying out door after the waters that to door checks to make sure provide our livelihood. the us state of missouri. people are safe. the storms have also hit neighbouring oklahoma and texas. and tying the knot in taiwan — is more we do everything we can to protect that environment. sustainable growth is in everybody's interests. we want consumers, we want the public and anybody with an interest in scottish salmon salmon — it's one of to be confident that the salmon britain's favourite foods. but what's the impact on our pristine waters farming sector is doing absolutely of the way it's farmed? everything that it can to grow. most people who choose salmon off their supermarket shelves have no idea of the waste that's what does "sustainably" really mean? going into our marine environment well, to many customers as a result of that. as the salmon industry plans a major expansion, it's a positive. what damage is being done below the surface? we found lots of dead but is itjust a word that things on the sea bed.

in fact, there's very helps boost the sales? dimitrios tsivrikos is a marketing little left alive. i couldn't believe that the fish had been allowed to get into that state. expert, specialising in psychology. are some farms breaking the rules designed to protect the environment? the consumer would be shocked if they knew that this was going on. as consumers we don't often read we have a good track record so we are relying upon visual but we do want that to be 100%. cues to make a decision. we do recognise that. say, for instance, we're having and should the rules be stricter? the beautiful picture of the loch, clarity, if companies do the wrong thing, green values, environmentally friendly. we're there to find that out and make sure they improve their game. if that's going to take tough action, you can be assured we'll take it. once it was considered a luxury. now a staggering one million salmon meals are eaten in the uk every day. scottish salmon sells at a premium. based in part on images of pristine lochs. how powerful is the scottish brand both to consumers here, and also to sort of overseas market, where scotland's wanting to sell? brand scotland is probably one of the strongest brands that we have. it's an incredibly diverse in both the food, the drinks and the fashion industry, once it was considered a luxury. and, and people actually really, really pay a great deal of attention now a staggering one million salmon meals are eaten in the uk every day. when it comes to brand scotland, so it's a fantastic label to use. it's my favourite dish on any menu. not a big meat eater,

and i eat a lot of fish. it's a £1 billion industry and one so this says it's of britain's biggest food exports. responsibly sourced i think it's very from kilbrannan sound. healthy, and tasty. scotland as a brand is heavily used, and there's lots of different recipes i can use with salmon. it's good for you, there's not a lot of fat on it and it's really enjoyable. and the dogs love it too. so it's a win—win. and you rely upon... take a look at the packaging. so, automatically a consumer he'd be it's easy to see some of the secrets of its success. thinking of clear waters, " healthy". "versatile". untapped territories, "sustainable". "responsibly sourced". 00:02:34,135 --> 2147483051:38:01,782 salmon‘s sold notjust as something 2147483051:38:01,782 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 that's good for you but that's good so you are creating a fantasy of something that's so pure. at kilbrannan sound, near the isle of arran, marine ecologist sally campbell is campaigning against the expansion of open net farms. people can look at where we're standing now, and they say "what a beautiful area". what they don't see is what is being put out into the sea by two big fish farms across here, which is actual waste food, waste chemicals. so you're saying that people in the supermarket who are buying

this don't necessarily understand or see what is going on? i think most people who choose salmon off their supermarket shelves have no idea of the waste that is going into our marine environment as a result of that. and they would be appalled, just as they're getting to be appalled by seeing plastic litter. what about the tonnes of waste that are going in from fish farms? this is loch fyne — renowned worldwide for its seafood. here, there are ten fish farms with open nets that let parasites in and waste out. i'm on my way to meet someone who says they want to talk about what they consider to be a scandal, hidden within scottish waters. corin smith is a wildlife photographer. his love for wild fishing, he says, led to his interest in salmon farming.

salmon farming exists in relatively remote areas. unlike land—based farms where you see the cattle and sheep running around the field. any member of the public can drive past any field in scotland and can see whether the stock is in a good state of health and is well. and if there's a problem, they're free to report it. but salmon farms, by their very nature, and also the location, are not subject to that level of scrutiny. hundreds of thousands of fish are held in the pens on each farm. open cage salmon farming is an intensive method of producing food. there has been overwhelming public

consensus that battery chicken farms are essentially unacceptable. salmon farming's never been through that process of public scrutiny yet. while we're on the shore, a small boat pulls up alongside the pens. we watch as workers clear dead salmon. they have a pipe which goes down about 60—odd feet, and they'rejust running a pump, just pumping the dead fish up from the bottom. how bad are the mortalities within the industry? mortality on salmon farms in scotland is a big issue. you'd think salmon farms would get better. but it's now up over 20%. that means every year around 9.5 million fish are dying. disease, parasites — and even the chemicals designed to treat them — can all prove fatal. there's no one more interested in ensuring the health and welfare of farmed salmon than the salmon farmers themselves. i meet guys and girls in the industry who are absolutely passionate about the fish that they rear from egg through to maturity and harvesting.

the mortality rates in the sector is not as good as we would like them to be. every farmer wants to see their livestock thrive. it's not just farmed salmon that are dying. catches of wild salmon, which also swim in these waters, are at their lowest level since records began. could this be related to the salmon farms? here in lewis, in the outer hebrides, they're recording wild fish stocks. paul hopper is a biologist with the local fisheries trust. today with his team he's gathering and counting wild sea trout to gauge their health. and so far, he's found nothing of concern. but last summer he was called to the blackwater river. where wild salmon

lay dead and dying. the fish were covered in sea lice — a naturally occurring parasite that can breed in huge numbers. most of them were showing a lot of physical damage, and that physical damage was, you know, what happens with the sea lice, they're attached to the fish's gills and then they spread to the back of the fish's head and sort of down the fish's back. and that's, yeah, very serious for the fish obviously. the wild fish will always have sort of background levels of lice, but what we were seeing here was something quite different, especially for adult salmon. the worst fish i counted had 7a7 lice on it, which is really quite exceptional. and to have this sort of epidemic in a wild population was really quite unusual. the dead wild salmon were found close to several fish farms on loch roag, run by the scottish salmon company. so, was there a link? marine scotland, one of two regulators, responsible for overseeing the industry visited

a nearby farm called vacasay on august 7th to assess the welfare of the farmed fish. inspection reports seen by the bbc show that the sites here on loch roag, were rated as "satisfactory" for parasites — despite them seeing signs of lice damage on the fish in the pens. several weeks later, a local photographer filmed above the same salmon farm. the white dots on the fish you can see swimming here are a sign of the damage done by sea lice eating their flesh. corin smith also filmed what was happening inside the pens. when i filmed in the farm, what i saw was an incident of severe sea lice infestation, and the fish were being essentially eaten alive by the parasites.

i couldn't believe what i was seeing, i couldn't believe the numbers and the damage. as someone from a farming background there are no illusions about what happens on land when you rear animals for meat. you know, i've seen that first hand. to see the state that the salmon had been allowed to deteriorate to. i couldn't believe that the fish had been allowed to get into that state. he shared his footage with a news website. within days, marine scotland's inspectors returned. this time they found high levels of sea lice. and four farms belonging to the scottish salmon company were sent warning letters for failing to control parasites. so why, just weeks earlier, had the inspectors given the sites a clean bill of health?

when they went out to that particular site it was fine. it was still on the high side and we were still telling the business that there was work that needed to be done but it was nothing out of the ordinary. then a couple of weeks later, the public saw footage, which looked pretty bad in terms of the state of those fish. how is that they could have been in such a bad state within such a short space of time? well, actually, it doesn't take that long. if the environmental conditions are right, for example with very warm water, for parasite numbers to increase very, very quickly. the scottish salmon company says the problems were "unprecedented" and "extremely challenging". the company says the fish were "treated swiftly" and has since recorded an "improvement in survival rates". scotland's sea lochs are prized for being a tranquil haven for an incredible array of marine life. and the tourist industry here is an important part

of the local economy. david ainsley runs a company taking visitors out on his boat to experience scotland's wildlife and iconic scenery. we have wildlife which is some of the best in europe. and that's what brings people here. today, he is taking me to loch shuna — part of a conservation area. an area where he also dives. over the last eight years, he's filmed the sea bed here. beneath the farms, he says, it looks very different. i dived and filmed this sea bed next to this farm. we found large areas of bacterial mat, we found lots of dead things on the sea bed. in fact, there's very

little left alive. the feed, faeces and chemicals from the farms fall through the nets, killing the marine life underneath. he filmed this footage just weeks ago. ‘s it's only the few people who go diving who can appreciate how bad the damage is. for him, the cause of the harm is clear. the problem is that we're changing the ecology of these inshore sea lochs. he thinks the government is failing to regulate the industry properly. we've had a history of weak regulation of salmon farming. a history where the sensible distances between farms have been reduced, where farms are allowed to pollute much greater areas. when the levels of the chemicals

in the sea bed exceed the allowable standards, nothing's done. a blind eye is turned to it. and the industry is just allowed to continue. there is no doubt we would accept that the regulatory structure is not as good as it might be. it probably needs now to be renewed and refreshed, and put in place for a more modern approach. sepa, the scottish environment protection agency, regulates the impact of the farms on the sea bed and marine life. its chief executive agrees there have been shortcomings. technically, it's a very difficult industry to regulate. most of the things we regulate are factories, and they have stacks into the sky or pipes into a river or the ocean. and it's much easier to measure the impact directly. so here we're talking about things that are off the coast.

now the fact that it's harder, that it's technically complex, just means we have to be better. we have to be more sophisticated. sepa tries to contain the impact the farms have on the local area. a fish farm can have a significant impact on the environment if it's not operated to the standards that are required. so it's really important that they do a good job, and it's really important that we do a good job to check that that's happening. salmon farming here is big business. more than 90% of companies are foreign owned. and there's one that's bigger than all the rest — mowi, formerly known as marine harvest. a norwegian giant which controls a third of the market. it says it's proud of the efforts it makes to take care of fish, customers, and the environment. the salmon farmers are absolutely on the leading edge of sustainability. the nice thing about salmon

obviously is that it, it's already eco—friendly. i mean its carbon footprint is lower than any other meat but is mowi living up to its environmental promises? all scottish fish farms have to have licences. each limits the total weight of fish and amount of chemicals allowed in a site at any one time. that's because too much harms the environment and kills creatures on the sea bed. we've examined a decade of public data held by the scottish government and found that mowi breached its licence 46 times at 16 different sites. we found sites that were hundreds of tonnes over their weight limit. mowi reported these breaches to the environmental regulator, sepa. i've spoken to sources, though, who are concerned the company isn't living up to its public statements about sustainability.

one former employee agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity. not to do so, he said, would place his livelihood at risk. his words are spoken by an actor. the company talks about being responsible, but i know that on certain sites it has gone more than 700 tonnes over its licence limit. what would be the consequences of that? it harms the sea bed and the environment. it's still a good product. but the consumer would be shocked if they knew that this was going on. we have a good track record but we do want that to be 100%. where we mess up, where we breach the licence, we need to have an action plan in place to correct that and fix it. and we take full responsibility and ownership for that. breaching weight limits can have grave consequences for the sea bed and the fish. and so can using too many chemicals.

we've examined sepa's figures for the last three years, 20 of those breaches were at mowi salmon farms. medicines are strictly controlled here in scotland, probably most of the strictest controls in the world. it's regulated, it's licensed. we only use licensed products for aquaculture and only under prescription from a veterinarian. we believe we are complying to the licences as they are written, and have confidence that our people are delivering this properly. we've learned mowi is one of a number of companies under investigation for possible misreporting of chemical use. we understand sepa's enforcement team removed documents during an unannounced inspection of mowi's head office earlier this month.

the company says the visit was part of an audit and not unannounced. we have confidence in what we're reporting for medications, it is used sparingly, we of course vaccinate our fish to protect them from fish health challenges. and we have confidence in the numbers that we're providing so of course we're supporting sepa in their audit, which has been ongoing for six months, and involving the industry. sepa, like marine scotland, has been criticised for its regulation of the industry. currently, 56 farms are rated by them as very poor, poor or at risk. yet in the past five years we've found no company has been fined or prosecuted. sepa says it's getting tougher. today they're making an unannounced inspection. and testing the sea bed. so this is quite a fine mud with an element of clay in it. so in here we'd expect to see

sort of polychaetes, like your wee worms. we might get a few crustaceans. once we've done that we'll take them to the lab and get a better picture. and they say they do take action when companies breach weight or chemical levels. there's been 44 times in the last five years where we've directed companies to reduce the number of fish they have in their farms. that can cost them hundreds of thousands of pounds, or potentially millions of pounds. and it's really important, because that leads to a reduction in the waste that actually hits the sea bed. 16 of the 44 farms told to reduce their weight limit were run by mowi. the uk's salmon farming problems are not unique. worldwide, the industry has been criticised for some of its practices, and the impact these have had on the fish, and the environment. i've come here, to norway, the world's largest producer

of salmon, to find out how they're doing things differently. norwegian companies own many of scotland's salmon farms. but here, they have to operate under tighter rules. if there's evidence they're damaging the environment or wild salmon, they can be fined. torbjorn forseth leads the scientific committee that advised the norwegian government to introduce these tighter regulations. i think the science that we have produced and the documentation that has been produced on the effects has actually helped the farming industry, because i think also the farming industry needs regulation to operate properly. arnfinn torgnes runs the norwegian aquaculture centre. he has years of salmon farming experience around the globe, including in scotland.

how do you see scotland and norway as being different in the way that they do salmon farming? the authorities control us in a stronger way than they do in scotland. but i accept and i am agreed that's a good thing for us. we need to have a big brother watching you that we don't do anything that's not good for ourself and also for the fish. so i think that may be the most, the biggest challenge, biggest difference, between scotland and norway. his facility is testing new ways of controlling parasites and the damage they do — research which is incentivised by the government in norway. first of all, we have an ordinary net, like all farmers use. but outside of the net we also have a tarpaulin system. and that's going all the way round? all the way around. 12 metres deep, the whole way round. so we don't let the parasite

go through this. so we keep the parasite on the outside. the authorities here have encouraged producers to develop semi—closed and closed farms by offering cheaper licences for new technologies. the contents of closed pens like these are isolated from the outside waters. the winners in this industry will be those that are able to implement new technology that gets rid of the large environmental issues. so why isn't this same technology being used back home? there's a lot of innovation in scotland, probably over {so—£60 million has been spent in innovation in the industry over the last year or so. i think it's undoubtedly true that there are some issues that have to be addressed. the status quo is certainly not something that we're happy with, so things have to change. whether we would simply pick up a regime from another country and try and plonk it on scotland, that's not likely to work.

new stricter rules will be published by the environmental regulator sepa in the coming weeks. they're expected to draw upon the example of norway. and promise a tougher stance on firms that don't play by the rules. if companies do the right thing, then they have nothing to worry about. if companies do the wrong thing, we're there to find that out and make sure they improve their game. if that's going to take tough action, you can be assured we'll take it. in the uk, salmon farming companies are pressing ahead with plans to expand open cage sites. the volume of salmon farms has remained relatively static over the last ten years in scotland, and we are losing our position in terms of local market share. we would like to get that back and grow. the ambition is to double in size by 2030. the industry, and the scottish government, say salmon farming is a sustainable way to produce food.

i wouldn't be doing this if i thought that we had a strong negative impact on the environment. it is farming at the end of the day, so, no matter what you're farming, you have some level of impact. we also need to manage these local impacts around the farms. farming on land has been the subject of a great deal of scrutiny in recent years. is it now time to keep a more watchful eye on the farming going on within our waters? i certainly think we need to feed people healthy food. i have no problem with that. what i do think is that healthy food should not be produced at the cost of our environment on which ultimately we all depend.

hello there. we saw a top temperature of 25 degrees at heathrow, in london, on thursday. there was a lot of sunshine around. it felt warm for many places and that's led to a fairly mild night across some southern areas. temperatures no lower 11 or 12 degrees in the london area to start friday. but a big cooler in some of the rural spots. the game—changer through the bank holiday weekend. introducing cloud, the breeze and the lower temperatures. so we will start off with a bit of sunshine around for the bank holiday weekend. some sunny some sunny spells and officials across the south—east, allowing the day it turns cloudy, breezy and wet. cooler here but again, 20, 20 two

celsius in the south—east. through the weekend conditions change and we start to see wet weather arriving on saturday night into sunday for many of us and for bank holiday monday it 00:26:11,182 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 is cooler with sunshine and showers.