The Norwegian Environmental Protection Association (NMF) reacts strongly to Lingalaks A/S being allowed to move its farming location in Kvam Herad in the Hardangerfjord.
Lingalaks A/S has applied to be allowed to move the farming location from Lokaliet 12085 Apalvika to a new location at Lingaholmene.
The reason why the Lingalaks want to move is reportedly that the Apalvika site has been completely destroyed due to heavy pollution under and around the plant. The locality they want to move from is now in the worst environmental indicator 4 - very bad.
Here the Lingalaks will move because they have destroyed the area they are now in, and to a new area which will then also be destroyed slowly but surely. And of course without any requirement whatsoever to clean the area they have now destroyed in the Apalvika locality. And without any form of new stricter requirements regarding the discharge of faeces and waste at the new site at Lingaholmene.
This is a form of operation that is not much different from the one we find in the rainforest, where you constantly burn and destroy new rainforest to provide arable land as the one you have cultivated is destroyed. We often find such a way of managing nature under regimes we do not want to compare ourselves to, and now we find the same pattern of thinking here in Norway as well.
In addition, the proposed new location is only 500 meters from a coral reef with bamboo corals that is on the Red List. NMF is completely convinced that these corals will suffer a slow death due to sedimentation of the corals.
Photographer: Havforskingsinstituttet
More about the occurrence of bamboo coral forests and environmental risks from emissions from aquaculture facilities
It appears from the decision that, during the proceedings, deposits of bamboo coral forest have been identified approximately 500 meters from the locality in question at Lingholmane. Bamboo coral forest is a red-listed species in the Species Data Bank that is registered as highly threatened. The species is rare, it occurs almost only in Norway and in a few places. In Andfjorden, the State Administrator in Troms and Finnmark has advocated the conservation of an area of bamboo forest as a marine conservation area.
There is generally a great lack of knowledge about the species. Environmental damage to the bamboo coral forest is irreversible, and that the bamboo coral shows a slow, significant reduction in recent years. Impact from aquaculture facilities is not taken into account in the red list assessment.
The NMF believes that it is now high time that municipalities that are to process such applications for either relocation or the establishment of new facilities from the farming industry set requirements for cleaning the emissions, similar to what municipalities do when establishing industry on land that has polluting emissions.
In this case, NMF has submitted a complaint together with Linga Hyttelag to the State Administrator in Vestland to stop the move to Lingaholmene.
You can read the attached complaint here (PDF)
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