S&TA applauds President Sarkozy for refusing wild salmon starter

publication date: Apr 29, 2008

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author/source: Salmon & Trout Association

From the Salmon & Trout Association

The Salmon and Trout Association (S&TA), Britain’s leading gamefish conservation body, is demanding answers to clarify why endangered wild Scottish spring salmon was served up at a recent high profile lunch in honour of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The summit event on March 28 at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium was hosted by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown. S&TA is writing to Downing Street and the chef Raymond Blanc, who prepared the menu, for an explanation.

S&TA now understands that President Sarkozy actually declined the lunch’s wild Scottish salmon starter because of concerns that it might not have come from a sustainable source. This starter was only served to the top table at the event – as just two scarce spring salmon had been available.

Paul Knight, Executive Director of S&TA, said: “We are particularly heartened that the French President has in effect endorsed the basic principle that the practice of indiscriminate coastal netting of our wild Atlantic salmon is simply unsustainable. At the same time we are utterly dismayed that his compatriot Raymond Blanc has failed to show a similarly enlightened approach. The fact that something is legal does not make it right. The inclusion of early-season wild Scottish salmon, universally accepted as unsustainable, on the menu at a state occasion is a disgrace. It sends out all the wrong environmental signals – just at the time when the environment and conservation should be at the top of the political agenda”.

Mr Knight added: “The Atlantic salmon is one of the truly great iconic species of Scotland. The marine survival of salmon has fallen dramatically in the last 40 years and accordingly it is vital that those that do survive are able to reach their rivers of birth, where they can spawn the next generation. The type of coastal net in which the salmon offered to President Sarkozy was caught makes this impossible”.

Patrick Fothringham, Director of the S&TA’s Net Loss campaign in Scotland, commented: “Any chef, who espouses the principle of only using fish from sustainable sources, must understand that wild salmon caught in coastal nets is off-limits. It really is astonishing that Mr Raymond Blanc, who is so forthright about his green ‘sustainable’ credentials and who also preaches the importance of ‘traceability’ of ingredients, is so brazen as to serve up early-running wild spring salmon – by far the most endangered and scarce element of all our salmon stocks”.

The salmon cooked for the summit lunch were sourced from the only Scottish coastal netting station operating in March. All other netting stations have heeded the advice of the Salmon Net Fishing Association of Scotland that they should postpone the start of their operations until April at the earliest – in order to help conserve particularly vulnerable stocks of early-running spring salmon.