It’s an implausibly still, clear-blue-sky day on the shore of Loch Hourn, a sea loch that separates the peninsulas of Knoydart and Glenelg on Scotland’s west coast, across the Sound of Sleat from Skye.
“It looks beautiful in the sunshine,” says Mick Simpson, crofter, former mussel farmer and scallop diver, and a founding member of Friends of Loch Hourn (FoLH), “but it’s what’s happening underneath the surface that’s the problem.”
FoLH was established in 2020 in response to plans by Mowi Scotland, the UK’s largest supplier of farmed salmon, to expand its fish farm, which has resided at the mouth of the loch for the past three decades.
Today, the community group totals some 100 members – residents, landowners, fishermen and more – who, in their own words, want to…