BY GARY BAXTER
Right. Let’s talk about the great Highland heist. No, not the one with balaclavas and getaway cars – the one being carried out in broad daylight, dressed in the respectable suits of ‘investment managers’, ‘supply chain logistics’, and even the righteous robes of certain fucking charities.
First up, we have the latest installment from our friends in the salmon farming industry, Bakkafrost Scotland. A farm on Loch Torridon – a place so stunning it should be a national shrine – was supposed to be empty. Fallow. A chance for the poisoned seabed to recover, for the ecosystem to take a single, blessed breath without being choked by fish shit and chemical run-off. But NO. What do they find? A pen of salmon, abandoned, crawling with fucking sea lice, left to slowly suffer in a cage that was legally meant to be VACANT.
And what’s Bakkafrost’s response? A masterpiece of corporate gaslighting. ‘A very small number of fish,’ they claim. ‘Identified five months ago,’ they whine. They ‘acted immediately.’ They’ve had a ‘comprehensive review.’ The welfare of the fish is ‘central.’ IS IT? Is it central to abandon the poor bastards like forgotten prisoners in a jail that was supposed to be shut down? This isn’t a welfare standard; it’s a dereliction of duty so profound it should be a criminal offence. And Tesco, with its hand-wringing statement, finds the footage ‘extremely concerning.’ Concerning enough to suspend one farm while the rest of their supply from this same bloody company, with its 45 other sites, carries on as usual. It’s a token gesture, a PR pressure-release valve, and they think we’re too stupid to notice.
But this isn’t happening in a vacuum. This is the logical end of the system we’ve built. And to understand that system, you just need to look a few hundred miles south to a 145-hectare plot in Carmarthenshire. This is Banc Woodland, a place that until recently was a living, breathing ecosystem. Now? It’s an ‘exceptional high-yielding, established plantation.’ It’s a ‘front of pipeline woodland creation asset.’ It was just sold by Foresight Natural Capital for a cool, undisclosed sum, but we know it was marketed for over £2.2 million.
Let that term sink in: Natural Capital. That’s what they’re calling our ancient, complex, life-sustaining natural world now. CAPITAL. An asset class for fund managers. They didn’t create a forest; they created a financial instrument. They planted rows of commercial Sitka spruce, threw in a few ‘fast-growing native broadleaves’ for greenwashing cover, and generated 16,550 Woodland Carbon Code units. They’ve literally commodified the very air we breathe, turning photosynthesis into a tradeable security. And they’re ‘pleased to see increasing price recognition’ for these units. They’ve ‘crystallised development value.’ They pat themselves on the back for the ‘impressive tree growth rates’ achieved in three years, as if a forest is a spreadsheet and its value is measured in board-feet and carbon credits. IT’S A BLOODY DISGRACE!
And just when you think the cynicism can’t get any deeper, we get to our soaring birds of prey. A report comes out, using the RSPB’s own data, showing a record low in crimes against these magnificent birds. This should be a moment of unbridled joy, a cause for celebration and a testament to the hard work of many. So why is the RSPB so uncharacteristically quiet? Why no response?
Because the game is the same, only the currency is different. For the asset manager, the currency is pounds from carbon and timber. For the salmon corporation, it’s pounds from Tesco. And for the charity, it’s pounds from donations. A crisis, a perpetual villain, is a fantastic fundraising tool. If bird of prey persecution is at a record low, where’s the urgency in the direct mail campaign? Where’s the gripping, outrage-filled documentary? They built a whole campaign to block the reintroduction of hen harriers on the potential for persecution. They have a vested interest in the idea of a problem, because a solved problem doesn’t keep the direct debits rolling in. It’s far handier to keep banging the same old drum and let the funds, and the influence, keep growing.
THIS IS THE SICKNESS. On Loch Torridon, they see a pristine loch not as a sacred part of our natural heritage, but as a convenient toilet for a ‘high-yielding asset’ of salmon. In Wales, they see a landscape not as a home for wildlife and a haven for people, but as a ‘natural capital investment strategy.’ And from the offices of certain charities, they see a conservation success story not as a victory, but as a threat to the bottom line. They are all playing the same fucking game, just with different rulebooks. One exploits the water, the other exploits the land, and the third exploits our compassion, and they all wrap it up in a language of ‘procedures,’ ‘enhanced controls,’ and ‘campaigning for a better world.’
They are industrialising our wild places and our goodwill, and they’re selling off the pieces, from the fish in the sea to the carbon in the trees to the very outrage in our hearts. And they have the audacity to call it progress. IT’S NOT PROGRESS. IT’S A LIQUIDATION SALE of our natural world and our trust, and we’re all just supposed to stand by and watch as the accountants, the asset managers, and the professional campaigners strip it bare for profit. It’s a disgrace. An absolute, unmitigated, BLOODY DISGRACE.
Gary Baxter is the son of a gamekeeper, is an ex gamekeeper and has run his own falconry based bird control business for the last 20 years.