To those of you who have been following Alexander Morton's fight to save their BC salmon runs from the fish farming industry backed by government - some good news.
See below the result of a recent court case.  If they can do it in BC then then could do it in Scotland though this now looks less likely now the SNP hold all the cards.

I thought this part of the judges summing up fits the  Welsh NRW  SNR consultation very well.

"The Minister of Fisheries pleaded that she was "guided by expert advisors" and that the licence conditions were based on "scientific criteria," but Justice Rennie noted that the Minister had said nothing about the science and furthermore he said:

 The Minister sheltered behind Marine Harvest's evidence [37]

The point is that assertions made in order to bolster the reasonableness of the Minister’s exercise of discretion cannot be made without evidence. [38]

What the Minister cannot do is make unsupported statements of science.[39]
What a powerful statement that is.  Not just an "unsupported statement", but an "unsupported statement of science."  What is science that has no supporting material?  The very definition of science is a systematically organized body of knowledge.
 Science without supporting evidence is junk, it is not science."

See below;
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Hello

I am very happy to tell you that the lawsuit I launched 2 years ago today with Ecojustice finally got a decision. WE WON!!!!!

The BC salmon farmers are no longer allowed to make the decision to put diseased fish in their farms!  This is very significant because most of the salmon farmed in BC that I test is infected with the virus PRV. 

The judge examined the science on PRV and made some very strong statements.

I have posted his decision at the top of this blog.

It is a dark day in Canada that we have to go to court to get the science read, but at least we still have this option.

My deepest thanks to Ecojustice, they worked so hard on this.  We were a strong team!

The industry has 4 months to comply - lots of hard work still ahead to make this stick.

Thank you for staying with me through this.

http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2015/05/we-won.html

alex
 

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