Smarten Up Safeway – new markets project to stop harmful salmon farming!

Wildcanada.net Action Alert - Thursday, January 20, 2005

It’s time to put our consumer power into action. Efforts to stop salmon farming by pressuring and lobbying industry are not working. Recent reports tabled by the auditors-general of Canada, British Columbia and New Brunswick state that a series of federal and provincial investigations found that wild salmon stocks are at risk on both coasts, and that the government is failing to protect them. Retailers are telling us that as long as there is demand for farmed salmon, they will continue to sell it.

We must take this issue into our local communities now – the environmental and health risks of continued salmon farming are too high.

Take action at www.FarmedandDangerous.org/Safeway and ask Safeway to smarten up!

By insisting on safe, and sustainable salmon products, consumers and retailers can provide a powerful incentive for fish farmers to improve harmful industrial salmon farming practices.

Why Safeway?

Safeway, a major grocer in both Canada and the US, is not living up to the environmentally and socially responsible business they claim to be. As a retailer, taking on this responsibility requires researching the products you are selling to the community in which you conduct business, and gaining a thorough understanding of the social and environmental impacts and true costs of all products.

Safeway continues to sell farmed salmon despite the known environmental, social, and human health risks this product poses.

Safeway executives have conveyed to Farmed and Dangerous campaigners that they continue to sell farmed salmon because there is a demand for it. Refusing to take a leadership role in educating the public about the risks, Safeway executives state that consumer demand is an acceptable reason to continue to offer farmed salmon.

Ask Safeway to step up to the plate and stop selling open net cage farmed salmon by sending a free fax from www.FarmedandDangerous.org/Safeway. Urge them to get this product out of their stores until the salmon farming industry comes up with a way to farm salmon that does not harm the health of people and the environment, coastal communities and wild salmon.

As of yet, no one has been able to make the salmon farming industry act responsibly. In 1996 the provincial environmental assessment office conducted an environmental review of the salmon farming industry and came up with 49 recommendations. Despite a commitment from the provincial government and the BC Salmon Farmers Association to implement these recommendations, most of them were ignored.

When it became clear that government wasn’t going to do its job to regulate the salmon farming industry, and when we saw that industry would continue to ignore valid concerns about open net cage salmon farming, we realized that we had to come up with a new way to get our message out. We had to find a voice that the salmon farming industry would listen to.

This voice comes from everyday consumers who ultimately hold the key to the market place.

Take action now at www.FarmedandDangerous.org/Safeway.

The Farmed and Dangerous markets project has been designed to educate consumers about the risks associated with open net cage salmon farming, and then help you communicate your concerns directly to industry in the form of refusing to buy farmed salmon, and taking actions such as participating in letter writing campaigns and attending days of action.

For more information about wild salmon, salmon farming and the Farmed and Dangerous campaign please visit www.farmedanddangerous.org.

For more information about the “Smarten Up Safeway” markets project please visit www.farmedanddangerous.org/Safeway.