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The two questions raised here are are as follows:
1) Why did David Suzuki's Foundation quietly remove its brochure titled “Why You Shouldn't Eat Farmed Salmon”? Internet archives show that this was off-line on February 3, 2010. That's the same day that I posted an open letter to David Suzuki in which I asked whether his foundation had deliberately manufactured controversy over farmed salmon as part of a sophisticated, well-funded marketing strategy for Alaskan "wild" salmon.
2) Was the David Suzuki Foundation's brochure, "Why You Shouldn't Eat Farmed Salmon" one of the "market intervention tools" paid for by a U.S. foundation (the David and Lucile Packard Foundation) as part of its "Market Intervention" strategy to sway consumers and retailers towards wild fish? As I wrote in The Financial Post, since 2000 the Packard foundation has spent $88 million to prop up the market for commercial fisheries, especially from Alaska.
The David Suzuki Foundation has been asked these questions in a series of letters and e-mails over the past four years. No reply has been received.
For many years, farmed salmon has been the target of a multi-million dollar "demarketing" campaigns, funded primarily by three pro-Alaskan, American foundations: the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts. The two main components of this "antifarming campaign" are Farmed and Dangerous and the Pure Salmon campaign. The David Suzuki Foundation is a founding member of both campaigns (see here and here).
Demarketing is the opposite of marketing, its getting people to buy less of something rather than more. Depositioning and demarketing farmed salmon sways consumers towards wild salmon - most of which is Alaskan. Depositioning is instilling fear, uncertainty and doubt, not only in the minds of consumers and the media, but within the competition itself. A classic example of depositioning and demarketing is the ads that Apple runs about Mac vs. PC.
A key tactic of the depositioning and demarketing of farmed salmon has been the well co-ordinated publicity of research studies, especially about PCBs in farmed salmon, and sea lice. About sea lice alone, there have been more than 500 news stories. After a study about PCBs by Ronald Hites and others, bad press about farmed salmon tripled for two years, according to an University of Idaho study.
If research shows that farmed salmon is high in PCBs, and that sea lice originating from salmon farms put wild salmon at risk of extinction - as the David Suzuki Foundation has been saying - I would agree that farmed salmon should be boycotted and banned. However, on the basis of what I have presented in my papers about research on contaminants and sea lice, it is clear to me that this is not what research actually shows. Nevertheless, the "demarketing" of farmed salmon has had a hefty impact.
Although it would come as a surprise to a lot of people, especially in Vancouver, farmed salmon is one of the few foods that most of us should actually eat more of, not less. According to a U.S. Institute of Medicine report, farmed salmon is higher in heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids than any other commonly eaten fish, and is very low in contaminants, especially mercury. That's about as good as fish gets! But that's not what we've been hearing from the David Suzuki Foundation.
What's gone largely unnoticed is that at the same time that some environmental groups are vehemently "demarketing" farmed salmon, others are enthusiastically promoting wild salmon (most of which is Alaskan), and they're all heavily funded by the same American foundations. The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, for example, runs two campaigns: Farmed and Dangerous and Wild Salmon Supporters. This program promotes specific, high-end restaurants that sell wild salmon in major cities of the U.S. and Canada. eg. The Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, and the Rattlesnake Club in Detroit. For the list, click here. The logos of the two campaigns of the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, are shown below.
One of the tools that has been used in "demarketing" farmed salmon is a brochure produced by the David Suzuki Foundation, titled, “Why You Shouldn't Eat Farmed Salmon.” This brochure is posted on-line in various places, including, for example, the public library in Prince Rupert.
According to Internet Archives, the brochure “Why You Shouldn't Eat Farmed Salmon” was last archived at the web-site of the David Suzuki Foundation, on Feb. 3, 2010. That’s the same day that I sent David Suzuki an open letter to appeal to him to please tell the whole truth about his research findings on PCBs in farmed salmon, and sea lice - and his foundation’s American funding. I also posted my open letter on the blog that I had at the time, called Fish Farm Fuss. However, that blog didn't have many readers so my open letter to David Suzuki hardly got noticed.
Back in 2002, David Suzuki wrote that this brochure had quickly zoomed to the top of the list of the foundation's most down-loaded web-pages. That comment was in a form letter that David Suzuki sent to his supporters - including me.
U.S. tax returns show that since 2000, the David Suzuki Foundation has been paid more than $10 million by U.S. foundations - including $762,600 from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. that was specifically for Pacific Salmon Forests, the project that produced, among other things, the brochure titled, “Why You Shouldn’t Eat Farmed Salmon.”
At the time that studies of contaminants in farmed salmon and sea lice were published in the journal SCIENCE, the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Donald Kennedy, was a trustee of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
For more than ten years, the Packard foundation has been funding a "market intervention" strategy to sway consumers and retailers towards wild fish under the banner of the Marine Stewardship Council. According to my research published in the Financial Post, the Packard Foundation has spent a staggering $88 million for this "market intervention" program, including $2.7 million for the demarketing campaigns (Farmed and Dangerous and Pure Salmon). Is the David Suzuki Foundation's brochure one of the "market intervention tools" that was funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation?
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For a .PDF file from the Internet Archive showing that the last day that the web-page for Why You Shouldn't Eat Farmed Salmon was archived, was Feb. 3, 2010, click here. To access this web-page in the Internet Archive, click here. NOTE: the web-pages in this archive can be slow to load. The link: http://waybackmachine.org/*/http://www.davidsuzuki.org/files/PSF_Salmon_Brochure.pdf
Related correspondence with the David Suzuki Foundation:
- January 20, 2011: e-mail RE: 20 press releases and web-pages removed from the web-site of the David Suzuki Foundation
- January 21, 2011: e-mail RE: Funding for the brochure, "Why You Shouldn't Eat Farmed Salmon"
- March 23, 2011: e-mail RE: When the brochure, "Why You Shouldn't Eat Farmed Salmon" was taken off-line.
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