On the map of Britain, Papa Westray is a tiny northern island in the Orkney islands. It's a beautiful place famous for its birdlife and clean beaches. However, the waters around Papa Westray already have more than their fair share of fish farms. 

We have been astonished by Orkney Islands Council’s decision on 8th September 2022 to allow one of the biggest fish farms in Scottish marine history to be given the go-ahead in the waters off East Moclett, North Sound, Papa Westray, Orkney.

We are seeking your support to stop this massive fish farm. Please support us.

There are already six existing fish farms, at Ouseness, Vestness, East Skelwick Skerry, Bay of Cleat North, Bay of Cleat South, and Scarfhall Point, which are close to the shore, but this seventh, classed as ‘offshore’, is still well within the definition of ‘inshore’ and is likely to cause even greater harm in the water channels around the island.

This project comprises six cages with a 160-metre circumference, with a mooring containment area of 452,000sq metres, a 600 tonne feed barge, and a biomass of 3,850 tonnes. These are among the largest cages used in the Scotland. This is massive industrial scale fish farming!

This will be an increase the company’s current yearly output in Orkney and Shetland of 26,000 tonnes from seawater operations to nearly 30,000 tonnes per year, 10 per cent of Scotland’s total. The aquaculture industry in Scotland produced 163,000 tonnes in 2016. The industry plans to extend production to about 200,000 tonnes in 2020 and to 300,000 – 400,000 tonnes by 2030. 

Furthermore, buried in the East Moclett submission is an equation to calculate the total faecal aquatic excrement from the proposed fish farm. Our maritime expert and a mathematics scholar was eventually able to work out that faecal effluence of the 3,850 tonnes of biomass from the proposed CAS site, and accepted by Orkney Island councillors, equates to the output of 49,500 humans per day, every day.

If you add the biomass of the six existing fish farm sites in Papa Sound (biomass 5,010 tonnes of fish), this is 8,860 tonnes, the equivalent to the excrement of 116,952 humans depositing their waste into the water. This is twice the population of the new Scottish city of Dunfermline in Fife. This is untreated waste.

The island population is around 80 and those living on the island are expected, by Scottish water authorities, to use septic tanks for human waste.

The campaigners in Papa Westray have been living with ‘inshore’ fish farms for a number of years yet the activity has increased by stealth with a lack of proper local consultation. The Papa Westray community is now saying “Enough is Enough”.