Block Corporate Salmon

Blocking industrial false solutions. Building relationships with Salmon People and with all people practicing Being, in community.

Wild Pacific Salmon used to be abundant across the Pacific, bringing in nutrients that they gather from years out in the ocean to bears, birds, seals, and coastal communities bordering the ocean. With the continued pressure of global capitalism and industrialization, Pacific Salmon are in a state of crisis. Profit-driven agribusiness corporations are making attempts to privatize the ocean, feed us genetically engineered “Frankenfish”, and further harm and displace Indigenous communities, independent fishing operations, and marine life. Through these violent and continuous acts of harm, Salmon People, fishers from many regions of the world, environmental justice organizations, and grassroots organizations such as #BlockCorporateSalmon are working to protect Indigenous ecologies, uplift Indigenous ways of being and knowing and Traditional Ecological Knowledge of our food system, and build far-reaching coalitions to resist genetically engineered salmon and corporate expansion and assert sovereignty over the stewardship of the oceans and watersheds.

Biotech giant AquaBounty Technologies has been growing its genetically engineered (GE) species in massive, land-based pens – and attempting to sell them to several buyers, including restaurants, in the Midwest and on the East Coast. The company, which calls its species “sustainable” and “responsibly raised,” says its salmon grows twice as fast as conventional salmon.

But GE salmon is neither sustainable nor responsible, and here’s why:

GE salmon bypasses the rights of the Salmon People. For Indigenous Tribes of the Pacific Northwest and North Pacific, access to wild Salmon is a fundamental right. GE salmon threatens their way of life and affects their treaty rights to catch wild Salmon in traditional places.
GE salmon is another example of corporatization and privatization of the seafood industry. This species, along with farmed conventional salmon, is purely profit-driven and places profit over people.
GE salmon could bring parasites, disease, and other threats to native wild species. Proponents of GE salmon claim their land-based facility is “bio-secure.” But we’ve seen the industrial fish farming industry fail to contain their fish, over and over again, and know that “Life finds a way.” So when (not if) GE salmon finds its way into waterways, it will compete with wild fish populations for food and habitat, spread disease, and reconfigure the DNA of wild species through breeding.
GE salmon could harm our health. We still have no idea what the human health impacts will be nor the ramifications of a genetic environmental disaster. Yet, restaurants and other food services in large parts of the U.S. are not required to inform you that you’re eating GE seafood.

There’s clear evidence that our joint campaign is working!

After a digital #blockcorporatesalmon campaign, global food giant Aramark has pledged not to buy GE salmon, joining Sodexo, Compass, Trader Joe’s, and more corporate buyers in this pledge.

Two years after the publishing of a whistleblower report, Aquabounty is shutting down its Indiana GE salmon facility

Read the full whistleblower report here!

AquaBounty is still attempting to build a new facility in Pioneer Ohio, so the struggle isn't over, but we will continue building our collective vision of sovereignty and relationships with Salmon People and all people hoping for a world where what is Sacred is protected.