Smoked salmon from Ireland has had its certification as a "slow food" suspended after letters of protest from conservationists internationally over the drift-netting of wild Atlantic salmon off the Irish coast.
The protests were made to the Italian Slow Food movement, which is pledged to protect "traditional foods at risk from extinction", following a Slow Fish conference in November in Genoa, at which Irish smoked salmon was featured.
Orri Vigfusson, chairman of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund, told the organisers that it was "complete nonsense" for Irish commercial interests to suggest that wild salmon numbers were being sustained. "Nothing could be further from the truth," he said. In a letter to Carlo Petrini, chairman of Slow Food, he called for the withdrawal of certification "before it can do serious damage to the Slow Food brand" and the campaign to restore seriously depleted stocks of wild Atlantic salmon.
Mr Vigfusson, who is based in Reykjavik, Iceland, explained that Irish drift-nets were not just catching fish bound for rivers in Ireland, but also intercepting many that would otherwise return to rivers in Wales, southern England, France, Spain and Germany.
"The Irish drift-nets and many of their draft-nets target mixed stocks of salmon that unfortunately include fish from the most depleted rivers in Europe," he told Mr Petrini.
"More French salmon tags are recaptured in Irish nets than are recovered in French waters.Every other nation had agreed to stop drift-netting. Ireland, on the other hand, not only continues to license its drift-net fishery but over the last 10 years has allowed its drift- nets to increase their share of the total EU salmon catch from 26 per cent to 51 per cent." Urging Slow Food to "act swiftly", he said this might encourage Ireland to "mend its ways."
"Then Irish salmon smoke houses will be able to look forward with confidence to the day when they can fairly claim a right to label their product with the Slow Food brand."
Mr Vigfusson was supported by conservationists from Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, France, Germany, Norway, Canada and the US, as well as by Niall Greene, chairman of the Stop Salmon Drift Nets Now campaign in Ireland. Mr Petrini said that although protecting fish smoking as "an important part of the Irish food and artisan tradition" was "very close to our hearts", smoked wild salmon from Ireland would be suspended.
