Fish-farm sues activist

A fish-farm company called Mainstream Canada has brought a lawsuit against Don Staniford, who lives in British Columbia but has been on Arran and is a great supporter of COAST. Mainstream alleges that Mr Staniford used ‘defamatory and false statements’ intended to damage the salmon-fishing industry. Mainstream, which is part of the vast Oslo-based company, Cermaq, has been particularly upset by graphics similar to the health warnings on cigarette packets and pointing to the same kind of dangers from fish-farming. Staniford points out that the tobacco industry over the last 30 years used tactics that ‘smear the science and deny the scientific impacts of smoking’ in an effort to defend their product, and holds that the fish-farming industry is guilty of exactly the same thing. 

The trial is expected to run for 20 days at the BC Supreme Court in Vancouver. With costs running at approximately $3,000 dollars a day, Mainstream probably assumed that Staniford would back down. However, the public has risen magnificently to help him, and money is flooding in through the gofundme.com website and through PayPal and cheques. A Norwegian fishing group, The Wild Salmon Warriors of Norway, has kicked in 60,000 Norwegian Krone ($10,000 CAD) of its own.

Damien Gillis, a journalist and film-maker who worked with Staniford on the documentary, ‘Farmed Salmon Exposed’, summed up the situation in a piece for the Pacific Free Press called Salmon and Goliath. Staniford, the former director of the global Pure Salmon Campaign, has travelled the world to bring together an international alliance of over 30 groups and coalitions working for the defence of wild salmon. Although a single voice against a vast industry, Staniford is well known in Norway, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Chile, the United States and Canada.

The Canadian Press states that the company is seeking ‘$100,000 in general damages, $25,000 in punitive damages and a permanent injunction to stop Staniford from writing, printing or broadcasting defamatory words against Mainstream.’ On his youtube video, Staniford makes it very clear that the battle ‘about justice for wild salmon and freedom of speech.’ He says he is ready to ‘go all the way’ to defend wild salmon against the damage done to them by the disease and parasites allegedly spread by the farmed fish industry.

Watch the youtube video –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2eHF38C4wQ&context=C323da8fADOEgsToPDskI–XvS8kd8gju_J9RqAGH0

or see Pacific Free Press

http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/10694-salmon-and-goliath-the-case-of-don-staniford.html