Hello, welcome to the Parliament podcast. Today, we're talking about salmon farming. Now, there are

very strong views on salmon farming in Scotland and how the Scottish government balances the economic

benefits brought by the sector with the environmental and fish health challenges that it faces.

The Rural Affairs in Ireland's Committee has recently published a report after its inquiry into this faces. The Rural Affairs in Islands Committee has recently published a report after its

inquiry into this issue. The committee took evidence from a range of stakeholders part of that,

regulators, fish farm producers and the Scottish government last year. And this report follows one that

was published back in 2018.

That report made 65 recommendations aimed at addressing some of the concerns about the industry.

So today I'm joined by Finley Carson, convener of the committee, and Beatrice Wischart, the deputy convener.

They're here to tell us a bit more about the inquiry and the conclusions that the committee came to.

Finley, Beatrice, welcome to the podcast.

Nice to be here.

Hello.

Can I turn to you firstly, Finley.

Could you tell us a bit more about the inquiry's remit and what it set out to achieve?

Well, as you touched on your introduction, as part of the legacy document that we got from the committee from the last session, there was a recommendation that we reviewed the work that the inquiry did previously. So we took that on board and we decided to fall up on those 65 recommendations made in 2018. But rather looking at them all individually, we took the decision to look at the

four main themes, which were fish health and welfare, environmental impact, interactions between

farmed and wild salmon, and of course, most importantly in some aspects is that the location

of those salmon farms.

As part of that, we undertook a fact-finding mission.

We travelled up to Auburn last September,

and we engaged with the community,

...