A new report from the environmental organization Feedback EU reveals extensive financial support from Dutch banks to the destructive salmon industry.
(Feedback EU (full name Stichting Feedback EU) is a non-profit making environmental organization created to contribute to efforts to achieve the preservation, protection and improvement of the environment for the benefit of the public interest in Europe.)
The research exposes the vast financial networks driving the destructive salmon farming industry across Europe. And what turns out? Over the last 10 years, banks in the Netherlands have collectively provided the largest non-Scandinavian source of credit to Norway’s aquaculture sector, with Rabobank providing $1.8 billion and ABN Amro $1.3 billion since 2015. Together these banks form the top two biggest creditors to Mowi, the largest salmon company in the world with various controversies behind its name.
Even sustainable bank Triodos has invested $16 million in Bakkafrost, invested $16 million in Bakkafrost, a growing player in North Sea salmon. The messaging of sustainability doesn’t match Bakkafrost’s track record with high mortality rates among the salmon and sea lice infections.
From Ireland to Senegal, local fishing communities are experiencing a devastating fundamental disruption to marine ecologies and local economies. The disruption and undermining of traditional fishing practises amounts to nutritional colonialism, with Norwegian companies leading a Blue Empire, partially bankrolled by Dutch banks.
Banks and investors must recognise this destructive practise and stop financing salmon farming now, urges Feedback EU.