Björk Goes to War Against the Salmon Industry

This week Iceland’s most famous singer, Björk, drops a new song featuring Catalan singer Rosalía. The collaboration is intended to raise awareness – and cash – to push back against Iceland’s salmon farms.

“The profits will all go to stop open net pen fish farming in Iceland,” the 55-year-old artist announced on Instagram. “We have a team of people from the biggest environmental groups in Iceland with lawyers that will take on other open net pen fish farming cases.”

The practice of open-pen salmon-farming came under scrutiny in August when thousands of farmed salmon escaped their fencing, threatening wild salmon populations with interbreeding and, more immediately, with an infestation of sea lice. The parasite Lepeophtheirus salmonis feeds on a salmon’s skin causing open sores, a weakened immune system, and death.

At least 12 fish pens containing a million fish may have been exposed to the parasite. It is unknown how many were infected, though a number of dead fish have been recorded by drones flying over the pens. It is believed some infected fish are now infiltrating Iceland’s river system.

Björk accused the Norwegian companies Mowi and SalMar of damaging “large areas of our fjords, marine life, animals and plants,” according to the Guardian, where she said artists like her are frontline environmental activists because “we are the canary in the coalmine. It’s our job to have our sensors, our antennae, out all the time, and read how we feel in our environment and be aware. We pick up this emergency – and we want to act on it.”

The new song titled “Oral” is not really new. Björk wrote and recorded it more than two decades ago but had never released the single, until now.

Listen to a snippet of the new (old) song “Oral” here, a video that includes a lot of text explaining Björk’s antipathy to fish farms.