The following is
taken from a
research report

written by Terry

for the
~ -David Suzuki

Glavin*

Soundation

COMPILED BY
ANNETTE MARTIN

f wild salmon are to have a

future on Canada’s west coast,

we must be prepared to make
sweeping changes in the way we
do things on land, in the rivers,
and at sea. Down through the
decades, there have been
numerous warnings about the
salmon’s uncertain future. But the
time for talking about action has
run out.

If wild salmon are to be a part
_ of our feature, a decision must
made. Either wild salmon will
survive, or they won't.

Tough changes

To decide that wild salmon must
have a place in our future is the
right thing to do, but the
consequences are enormous. It
will change everything; from the
way we build our cities, cut trees,
and graze cattle, to the way we
govern ourselves. It will mean
drastic changes in the ways we
catch salmon, where we catch
them, how much we catch, and
even if we can afford to catch
them at all.

We have to change. That much
is simple enough. The facts show
conclusively that the time for
change is now.

The David Suzuki Foundation
enthusiastically supports govern-
ment policies that allow for
vibrant and healthy fisheries for
aboriginal communities, and com-
mercial and recreational sectors.
At the same time, we have
watched with dismay as federal
and provincial governments have
descended into deep dysfunction
in their relationship on the issue
of salmon fisheries. Political dis-
putes and power struggles are a
luxury the salmon, and the public,
can no longer afford. Canada and
British Columbia must cooperate
in the development of policies
that focus on integrated, long-
term strategies to protect and
restore the genetic diversity of
Pacific salmon.

Marine ecosystem
changes

During the 1990s, a major change
has occurred in the ocean

ecosystem off British Columbia's

coast. In 1998, nitrates
disappeared from surface water in

offshore areas, which poses grave
threats to various plankton
populations, low-trophic level
species, and ultimately to the
“forage” species necessary for
salmon survival.

Alarming declines in marine
survival have swept northward
from California and up along the
British Columbia coast. These
large-scale disruptions, whatever
their cause, are becoming more
frequent, more intense, and more
dramatic.

They have wreaked havoc with
coho, steelhead and chinook pop-
ulations and marine survival rates
for coho have declined dramati-
cally.

At a Vancouver workshop in
March 1998, Pacific Rim fisheries
scientists determined that climate
change is now a factor'that may
have as large an impact on our
salmon as the direct effect of our
fisheries. The scientists have
begun to document long-term

cycles and fluctuations in weather,

 

“Man, | can’t wait to spawn!”

barometric pressure and ocean
productivity. Patterns in each
country’s salmon catch demon-
strate that climate influences con-
ditions in the marine environ-
ment—a key element in salmon
production.

Since 1993, other scientists
have begun to analyse the rela-
tionships between salmon abun-
dance, ocean conditions and pat-
terns in climate. Their findings
disprove notions about how the
strange weather involves only nat-
ural “El Nifio” events, and also
challenge naive assumptions that
things will be “normal” again
soon,

Scientists from the United
States, Canada, Russia and Japan
have concluded that the environ-
mental disturbances wreaking
such havoc with salmon go far
beyond temporary events associat-
ed with El Nifio effects, and the
more recently-described effects of
La Nifia.

Research findings also suggest
that the damage industrialized
countries have visited upon
salmon has gone beyond over-
fishing and habitat destruction,
and has extended far into the sur-
face layers of the ocean itself.

Water temperature
changes

Changing ocean temperatures are

causing salmon to change their

homeward migration routes, and
the timing of their returns to
BC's rivers.

To make matters even more
perilous, salmon are encoun-
tering extreme stresses in the
freshwater environment. In
1998, water temperatures in
the Fraser River were among
the highest on record, and
water levels were the lowest
on record, turning the
Fraser into a death trap for
tens of thousands of
salmon.

By September 1997, sea-
surface temperatures record-
ed at lighthouses along the
British Columbia coast were
higher than any since the
1930s. In fact temperatures
peaked in late summer at
levels expected by random
chance to occur only once
every 1,000 to 10,000 years.
The evidence is before us:
The North Pacific is getting
warmer, and the structures
of various North Pacific
ecosystems are changing.

The Pacific Salmon
‘Treaty

The time has come to
replace the Pacific Salmon
Treaty with a new
convention which binds all
the Pacific states and the
Province of British
Columbia. A new treaty that
reflects not only the
legitimate interests of
fishermen but also the
public interest in salmon,
and the importance of
maintaining biological diversity in
salmon populations.

Clearly, the Pacific Salmon
Treaty has outlived its usefulness.
Long after it came into effect in
1985, the old pattern of dis-
agreement, dispute and controver-
sy remained largely unchanged.
The treaty has also proven inca-
pable of maintaining “equity”
between the harvests by both
countries’ fleets. The pursuit of
“equity” has resulted in endless
arguments about the economic
value of salmon, and produced a
calculated mechanism known as a
“sockeye equivalent,” that has
been used in an attempt to ensure
balances between each country’s
catch of each other's salmon.

The US and Canadian partici-
pation in annual treaty negotia-
tions has been limited almost
exclusively to industry “stakehold-
er” groups, and talks have col-
lapsed on several occasions since
the treaty was signed in 1985.
These breakdowns have led to
two “fish wars” since 1994, over-
fishing by both countries’ fleets,
incidents of civil disobedience
and badly damaged relations

Author Terry Glavin

between both countries.

The chronic harvest-share dis-
putes under the Pacific Salmon
Treaty erupted again this season.

 
 
   
   
   
   
  
  
  
   
  
 
 
 
   

Alaska’s fisheries managers were
refusing to amend their mixed-
stock fishing plans to allow
endangered Canadian coho to
pass through the Alaskan gauntlet
of nets and hooks, and B.C. fish-
ermen mounted a highly public
protest against the presence of
Alaskan-caught coho on the menu
in Vancouver's Keg Restaurant
chain. But away from the public
spotlight, two-thirds of the
canned salmon produced in
British Columbia in 1998 came
from raw salmon imported from
Alaska—often by Canadian firms
operating in Alaska.

While all these events were
unfolding, even the “lucky” fish-
ermen who were able to persist in
their fisheries were facing insol-
vency as a result of the changed
market conditions effecting the
salmon economy. In British
Columbia, the fishermen’s union
was forced to accept a price
regime for salmon that provided
fishermen with prices, about one-
third of those they had com-
manded a decade earlier.

All levels of Government
should set aside their differences
and immediately commit them-

will to save Pacific salmon

selves to assisting commercial
fishermen, shoreworkers and fish-
ing communities in developing
new fishing practices, new mar-
kets, and new ways to “add
value” to fewer fish.
The Pacific Salmon Treaty
has failed its objectives, which
were to avoid harvest-share dis-
putes between Canada and the
United States, and to control
over-fishing by the fleets of
both countries. Neither has
happened. Instead, it has caused
significant strains in relations
between Canada and the US,
and between Canada and British
Columbia. The Pacific Salmon
Treaty has entrenched “mixed-
stock” fisheries.

“Mixed stock” v. selec-
tive fisheries

Non-selective “mixed-stock”
fisheries management regimes
must end. “Interception”
fisheries, undertaken by the
commercial and recreational
sectors of both Canada and the
United States, must be replaced
by more stock-specific, selective
fisheries and Governments
should expend every effort to
assist fishermen and fishing
communities in making these
difficult transitions.

Since the last century, both
Canada and the United States
have designed fisheries-manage-
ment regimes that sanction a
“race for fish” among their
respective fleets and between the
fleets of both countries. While

fishing effort is usually aimed at
harvestable surpluses of relatively
healthy salmon populations, a
consequence of this practice has

‘been:a concentration of the

industry's fishing effort in “mixed
stock” areas, where many home-
ward-migration salmon runs min-
gle and “mix”.

Non-selective “mixed-stock”
fishing tends to result in the
unavoidable depletion of smaller,
co-migrating salmon populations.
The most serious consequence of
the loss of small salmon runs is a
crippling decline in the biological
diversity in salmon —the greatest
requirement for long-term abun-
dance.

The fishing industry, generally,
has taken it for granted that
somehow scientists will know pre-
cisely how many fish are in the
water at any given time, which
fish are safe to catch and which
fish aren't, and how many of each
run will end up in the fleet's nets.
These expectations are impossible
to meet.

Significant disruption will
result from moving away from
non-selective “mixed-stock” fish-
ing practices, but we do not pro-
pose that governments use blunt

 

Page 6 Noveinber 4 1998

The Other Press