World’s first shareholder resolution to prevent an extinction

A global first shareholder activism campaign targeting major Australian supermarkets has rallied more than 120 shareholders to back a resolution calling for the removal of farmed salmon to save the endangered Maugean skate.  

Living Oceans is a proud partner of the Save the Skate shareholder activism campaign, providing expertise from our SeaChoice work of watchdogging retailer sustainable seafood policies and certifications. 

The campaign is a global first on many fronts: the first to specifically target farmed salmon; first to challenge flawed supermarket sustainability policies and their reliance on greenwashing certifications; and the first aimed at halting an extinction emergency.   

The millennia-old skate is on the trajectory to be uplisted to critically endangered with only an estimated 40-120 adult skates left in the wild. Conservation Advice to the Australian Government has identified salmon farming as a “catastrophic” threat to the skate’s survival.  

Worldwide, including Canada, there is an increasing investor expectation that companies disclose and plan for how to respond to nature-based risks in their supply chains. For example, the World Economic Forum ranked biodiversity loss as the third-largest global severe risk over the next decade. 

Supermarket shareholders of Woolworths and Coles are due to vote on saving the skate in the coming months at their annual general meetings. We’re keeping a close eye on what happens next with the ground-breaking Save the Skate campaign in anticipation that similar shareholder initiative could be established in Canada.