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policy instruments to achieve this objective.
Under a carefully-managed strategy, devel-
oped in consultation with commercial and
recreational fishing communities, the neces-
sary transitions can be made. Invaluable
expertise exists among and within fishing
communities.

The US National

800,000 metric tons, and farmed salmon
production had reached almost 600,000
metric tons. This year, world farmed
salmon production will likely eclipse the
all-nations’ catch of wild Pacific salmon.
This artificial “abundance” of farmed
salmon has masked the declines and

scarcities in wild salmon.

 

Research Council
states, “this [strategy]
will require fishing
methods that allow
different degrees of
fishing effort on vari-f
ous salmon popula-
tions and that allow
identification of fish fA
taken from depleted
demes (local breeding
populations) so that
they can be avoided
or released alive.”

In some cases,

 

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
   
   
 
 
  
 
  
  
 
   
  
  
  
 
 
   
  
   
 
  
   
   
   
   
  
 

 
 

where fishing effort is Thal oe i :
extremely low—as in roller Cate
certain sports fish-
eries and some commercial salmon troll
fisheries—“mixed-stock” fisheries, if close-
ly monitored, can be relatively safe. And
under carefully controlled circumstances,
conventional gear types (seine, gillnet and
troll) can be selective. Our point is to end
non-selective “mixed-stock” fishing as the
predominant characteristic of salmon fish-
ing in both the commercial and recreation-
al sectors.

The most effective decision our govern-

ments can make with respect to salmon-
fisheries management on North America’s
west coast is to immediately end the prac-
tice of concentrating fishing effort in non-
selective “mixed-stock” fisheries.
Such a major policy shift would bring
about dramatic, but necessary, changes to
the conventional salmon fisheries of this
coast and the communities dependent on
them.

The effects of farmed salmon
roduction
n 1995, wild salmon production exceeded

ROM EIA
ENVIRONMENTAL
NVESTIGATION AGENCY)

 

he British-based Environmental
Investigation Agency (EIA) has
attracted worldwide support
alling for a moratorium on the grizzly
ear hunt in British Columbia. EIA
epresentatives hand-delivered a copy of
e appeal to Premier Clark’s office in
ictoria October 9th. Copies will also be
iven to each member of the Legislative
ssembly.

“EIA has been overwhelmed by the
upport from leading environmental and
ildlife conservation groups, not only
rom British Columbia and Canada, but
rom all over the world,” comments Allan
hornton, EIA's Chairman. “We hope
is will help to persuade Premier Glen
lark to take immediate action to sus-
end the hunt and undertake a compre-
ensive count of the province's grizzly
ears.’ The appeal is supported by 65
onservation and environmental groups
orldwide, including 30 Canadian-based
roups and 21 from British Columbia.

The UK-based Born Free Foundation
et up by the highly respected actors

 
  

hing Coho off Sitka, Alaska

Old laws of
supply and
demand don't
work in these
conditions, and

the paradox is
| that up and down
the coast, on both
sides of the bor-
der, salmon are
undergoing sig-
nificant declines
and fishing com-
} munities are fac-
ing acute scarci-
ties in the raw
salmon resource.
When wild
salmon supply drops, demand is not caus-
ing wild-salmon prices to rise because

   
   

farmed salmon is everywhere.

Gunnar Knapp, an economics professor
at the University of Alaska at Anchorage,
is probably the world’s leading analyst on
salmon prices and the salmon economy. In
a recent assessment, Knapp concluded that
farmed salmon production will continue to
rise, and any shortfall in total world
salmon supplies will be easily and quickly
met by increased production by salmon
farming corporations. Prices for wild chi-
nook, sockeye and coho are likely to keep
falling, Knapp said, and further declines
will mean fishermen simply will not be able
to afford to fish them.

In the price competition between farmed
and wild fish, a fairer competitive field
could be established by ensuring that
salmon farms find food sources other than
the low “trophic level” protein being har-
vested from the seas, and also by requiring
netcage operations to move to closed-con-
tainment systems. But the salmon netcage

Grizzly bear dining on salmon

Virginia McKenna and the late Bill Travers
have given their support for the EIA
appeal. Will Travers (son of the actors)

industry is not going to go away, and the
industry's operating costs, Knapp believes,
will continue to fall, suggesting that the
market price advantage held by farmed
salmon will continue well into the future.

A bright future

The following may seem like a discordant
thing to say in the context of these
observations, but there is a bright future in
commercial salmon fishing—although it is
not overly optimistic. But if there is to be a
commercial fishery for salmon at all,
structural change in the industry is
necessary.

The industrial salmon fisheries of
British Columbia's coast have become
increasingly difficult to justify both envi-
ronmentally and economically. Commercial
salmon fishing can no longer be regarded
as an “industry” in any conventional sense
of the term—it no longer provides a
decent seasonal livelihood to the vast
majority of fishermen—and both the fed-
eral and provincial governments must
adopt policies reflecting these facts.

To expect that far fewer fishery partici-
pants will be capable of harvesting the
same volume of fish, in more selective

ways, is less than reasonable. However, it is. 2 ie fee cgi
é = tates must abandon the belligerent pos-
clear that the “industry” as weshave Known ~ - 8 P

it is over, and must be replaced by some-
thing new. Governments must be honest
enough with fishing families to tell the
truth—that the commercial salmon fishery,
as it has existed for more than a century, is
over.

What all this means is that by allowing
the old, volume-based industrial fisheries to
die, commercial fishing does not have to
die with it.

Back to the river
The most effective way to ensure that
fishing effort is concentrated in “selective”
fisheries is to move the centre of harvest
effort back into the river systems, where
aboriginal peoples maintained fisheries for
millennia.

BC’s fish processing companies have

OP file photo

says, “A suspension of the hunt is an

urgent priority, before it’s too late.” He

calls the grizzly bears of British Columbia

long maintained that river-caught fish is of
a lower grade—to the point of being
unmarketable—and is consequently of no
economic value. But salmon roe generally
commands its highest price when it is
extracted from fish harvested well into the
freshwater environment, and river-caught
fish often produces the best quality smoked
product. Inland fisheries could produce
“sockeye caviar” and smoked-fish products
that could easily be commercially viable in
markets like Japan and Germany.

Our Common Future: Restored
Abundance and A New Salmon

Economy

Some bold moves toward the establish-
ment of imaginative and effective habitat-
protection regimes are underway in the
Pacific Northwest under the auspices of
the US Endangered Species Act.

In Canada, the Department of Fisheries
and Oceans has been instructed by the fed-
eral government to move fisheries manage-
ment away from “mixed-stock” fishing and
establish selective-fisheries as the “corner-
stone” of salmon management on Canada’s
west coast.

The governments of Canada, the United
States, British Columbia, and the Pacific

tures they often adopt towards each other
and act in common in the public interest,
and on behalf of the salmon. Similarly,
fishing communities, both native and non-
native, along with recreational interests and
conservation groups, must set aside their
differences and join with the public in fac-
ing the realities touched upon in this
report.

There is no time left. The changes con-
templated by this report are now upon us
and we must decide whether or not salmon
will be part of our future.

We must act, now.

*Terry Glavin was one of the founders of the Other Press
newspaper in 1976. He now lives on Mayne Island. We don’t
believe there is a connection between these two statements.

©1998 David Suzuki Foundation. All rights
reserved.

Proposed moratorium on BC’s grizzly bear hunt

“a potent symbol of Canada’s rugged
wilderness. When people think of British
Columbia, they think of wildlife—its orca,
its forests, and particularly, its grizzly
bears. But their numbers are dwindling,
and it would be a tremendous loss if they
were lost from the landscape forever.”

Leading environmental groups from
Mexico, the United States, Thailand and
Australia have given their support for the
moratorium.

Commenting on the support, Allan
Thornton said “Grizzly bears in British
Columbia are under intense pressure from
hunting, poaching and habitation loss. The
overwhelming support for a moratorium on
hunting BC’s grizzly bears reflects the
growing international concern for the
plight of BC’s threatened and vulnerable
populations. The only acceptable response
to the international community will be for
Premier Glen Clark to enact an immediate
moratorium on the legal killing of around
350 grizzly bears each year.”

 

 

The Other Press

November 4 1998 Page 7