Don Staniford, centre, with his legal team in Edinburgh in February, when he won some concessions from Mowi Scotland but failed in his attempt to have an interdict set aside. Bakkafrost Scotland is seeking a similar interdict to Mowi, but with no concessions.

Activist agrees temporary stay-away truce with Bakkafrost Scotland

Editorial team
Published

A court hearing at which Bakkafrost Scotland was due to seek an interim interdict (injunction) against anti-salmon farming activist Don Staniford has been cancelled at the request of both parties after Staniford gave a temporary undertaking to stay off the company’s marine sites.

The hearing had been scheduled for next Monday, December 23.

Bakkafrost is still seeking a permanent interdict against Staniford that is broader than a permanent interdict granted to Scotland’s largest salmon farmer, Mowi, in 2023.

Staniford won some concessions from Mowi at an appeal hearing in Edinburgh in February this year, but a ban on Staniford’s core activities of mooring his kayak to pens and climbing on to pen walkways was upheld by the appeal judges. Staniford, who climbed on to the walkways to film moribund fish with a Go-Pro camera on a pole, was later refused permission for a second appeal, exhausting his options to contest the ban.

Bakkafrost wants the same protections enjoyed by Mowi, but also wants Staniford to observe a 15-metre exclusion zone around its pens, and to be banned from flying drones over farms, or encouraging others to do so. Those were conditions of the original interdict granted to Mowi, but which the company’s counsel gave up at the appeal hearing in February.

Staniford and lawyers for Bakkafrost Scotland are due to appear at Dunoon Sheriff Court on February 18 next year for an options hearing related to the salmon farmer’s application for a permanent interdict.

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