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Treaties - Are They Out of Touch with Reality? The world had changed a little since 1760. It’s important to raise that point in view of a troubling battle being waged between native Indian fishermen and the government of Canada at a place called Burnt Church, New Brunswick, on the Atlantic Coast. At issue is the native right to fish. In this instance, the prey species is lobster, but it might as well be salmon. In the 18th century, the government signed treaties with the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet people, guaranteeing them the right to make a moderate living by hunting, fishing and gathering. Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the legal validity of that treaty, and the native people interpreted that as a right to continue dropping lobster pots in the bay, long after non-native fishermen had been ordered to pull their gear, for conservation reasons. The people who live on the Burnt Church Indian reserve number about 1,300. But fisheries officers pulled more than 3,000 lobster pots out of the water, as they tried to enforce a fisheries closure. For trying to enforce laws based on conservation needs, the fisheries officers were stoned and called racists. At times is seemed an armed battle might break out. Luckily, the lobster migrated to deeper water at the end of September, as they always do, ending the conflict - until next year. When the treaties were written, there weren’t any power boats, there weren’t any monofilament gill nets, there wasn’t any sonar, or radio communication. And there weren’t any deep water lobster pots. On both coasts, native Indian fishermen are now far more efficient than they were when the treaties were written. They can wipe out entire runs of salmon with a single seine boat, or saturate the bottom of a bay with lobster traps, ruining the resource for everyone. Conservation clearly has to come first, for native fishermen and non-native fishermen alike. And somehow, the government of Canada has to come to grips with the realities of a changed world. A native fisherman with a high powered boat, and a few thousand lobster pots on the deck, or a mile long salmon gillnet in the hold, was never imagined when the first treaties were signed. Letters can be sent via e-mail to: letters@ariverneversleeps.com
The Editor: The media has recently been full of good news stories about the state of salmon stocks on the Skeena River (in northern British Columbia). Perhaps it would be timely to reflect on how this came to pass. A few short years ago, the stories were quite different. Skeena Coho were disappearing, steelhead were at an all-time low and confrontation and anger were the order of the day. And the newspapers ran story after story, filled with the painful rhetoric that always accompanies failing natural resources. The turnaround in the state of Skeena salmon isn’t an accident of nature, it came about because people insisted our government had to do a better job of managing this resource. And it came about because fishermen - aboriginal, sport and commercial - changed their fisheries, and sacrificed immediate opportunity for hope in the future. Nor was it an easy thing to do - for decades both conservation minded sport fishermen and upriver First Nations fought a desperate battle with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to get them to even admit something was wrong. The same DFO scientists and managers who then referred to salmon as "pieces in the ditch" (and saw steelhead and coho as inconsequential minor species available for extinction) now speak the language of conservation. Because we simply insisted that they do so. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that conservation works. Nor should it be a surprise that the conservation rhetoric of a decade ago - that conservation would create economic opportunity - has proven itself true. While we are fortunate that nature has cooperated with high oceanic survival rates, Skeena salmon had continued to decline during times of similar oceanic productivity. It wasn’t a question of nature cooperating with us, but rather of us giving nature a chance to heal our mistakes. So to the native fishermen, and especially the Skeena Fisheries Commission and First Nation leaders like Chris Barnes, I say well done. To all the conservation minded anglers who fought so hard for reform - Rob Brown, Jim Culp, John Brockely and many, many more - well done. To the loggers who have sincerely tried to do a better job of protecting habitat - our thanks. And to the thousands of commercial fishermen who perhaps sacrificed the most - our thanks. And to the honest scientists, especially in the provincial Ministry of Environment, who cared enough to risk their careers by challenging the status quo, an especially heartfelt well done, you are true environmental heroes. The trick is to now continue down the path of conservation, and to realize that economic opportunity is deeply linked to conservation. To realize that risk averse, abundance based fisheries management simply make more sense and works better than the discredited Maximum Sustained Yield philosophies of the last half century. We need to resist the calls from those who seek to satisfy their immediate desires for increased harvests and keep our eyes on the real prize - runs of salmon in the Skeena as close to historic pre-contact levels as possible. Coho and steelhead need a few more years of rebuilding. Lets not repeat the mistakes of the past, but rather move cautiously and responsibly towards increased harvests. Salmon, and the lack of them, has been a flashpoint for some of our less desirable traits for too long. From outright racism towards native fishermen, anglers blaming all their troubles on commercial fishermen, commercial fishermen despising anglers - the rhetoric of blame had become all too predictable. The rhetoric of success is far more enjoyable, and Skeena salmon are fast becoming a remarkable success story. Patience, and a continuing and relentless vigilance of DFO managers, will help guarantee that recent successes continue and grow. - Bruce Hill The Steller sea lion, an unassuming marine mammal protected under the Endangered Species Act, is in the national spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles wants President Clinton to overturn a federal court ruling designed to protect the animal. Only a few months ago, the Steller was the focus of environmentalists'outrage when dozens of the sea mammals were discovered slaughtered on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Over the course of the year, the unobtrusive sea lions have become a friction point between commercial fishing interests and environmental advocacy groups. The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans has known for more than a decade that sea lions are lured by thousands of salmon that cluster in fish-farm pens along the Pacific Coast. To address the problem of break-ins, the department issues licenses that permit farmers to shoot marine mammal predators if they threaten their stock. But officials were caught unawares when a pit of dozens of dead sea lions was found on Clayoquot Sound on the western coast of Vancouver Island. Further investigation revealed that the animals were killed by proprietors of a fish-farming business that received a license by the DFO. The discovery brought to light a macabre trend: a drastic upsurge in penniped killings. Over the past 10 years, salmon farmers have shot nearly 5,000 marine mammals, including 300 Stellers, natives of the North Pacific. A shortage of pollock and herring stocks is driving sea lions to infiltrate salmon nets where plentiful stock is sitting prey. Clashes between fish farmers and the hungry intruders often result in expensive damage to farm property and more sea lion deaths. Marine biologists and conservationists fear the trend bodes ill for the Steller, whose population has declined sharply since 1965. Today, Stellers number only 10 to 20 percent of their population 30 years ago. Stellers have been healthy in British Columbia for decades, numbering nearly 5,000, and the DFO saw no reason for concern when it introduced licenses 11 years ago. Since then, however, the number of slayings has increased. Scientists believe sea lions are invading fish farms because of a diminishing supply of the mammal's primary source of food. But environmentalists say the fish farms are poorly designed and located in areas that attract predators. "Any seal or sea lion swimming by can see the salmon - it's like putting a dinner bell out there," said Valerie Langer of Friends of Clayoquot Sound, a Vancouver Island-based environmental advocacy group. "(Fish farmers) should be able to change their technology so that they wouldn't need and want to shoot lions. (They should) actually make nets lion-proof to begin with," said Phil Klein, fisheries program director for the American Oceans Campaign. The Sierra Club and the Friends of Clayoquot Sound are lobbying to have the fish farms moved inland, away from temptation. There are approximately 100 salmon farms in southern British Columbia, all of which use open sea pens. American marine biologists worry that the Canadian killings might affect the overall population of Stellers. Little is known about the migratory patterns of the sea lions, but scientists believe there is considerable exchange between American and Canadian species. "Our concern is that the number of animals reported is not the same as the actual number killed," said Tim Regan, Steller sea lion recovery coordinator for the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Juneau, Alaska. Though they number nearly 40,000, only about 500 Stellers are left in California. In 1990, the eastern species of Stellers was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. In 1997, the western species, which resides mainly in northern Alaska and Russia, was listed as endangered. Intensive industrial trawling in Alaska has depleting fish stocks that have traditionally been the Steller's core food source, further threatening the animal's survival. In July, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly of Seattle ordered an injunction to prevent trawling in the western Alaska waters that surround Steller rookeries. The decision was made after environmentalists chargedthat the National Marine Fisheries Service had failed to protect the endangered mammals. In response to the outcry from Alaska's fisherman, Knowles said he will appeal the injunction with the help of the state's attorney general. Knowles also requested personal intervention from President Clinton. As the debate heats up in Alaska, the NMFS is working on a new "biological opinion" that will examine the potential threats, including commercial fishing, to the western Alaska Steller population. The American Oceans Campaign, one of the plaintiffs in the federal trial, has pledged to fight the governor's effort to appeal the decision. - John Foss There is a growing body of sound scientific evidence, from throughout the world, that the massive scale netpen rearing of salmon is now a major extinction threat to wild salmon. It is no longer a "radical" or "polarized" or "unrealistic" view for those concerned with the conservation of our wild salmon, to advocate the removal of the netpen rearing of salmon from British Columbia,Washington State, and Bay of Funday waters. This is now a reasoned,considerate, and credible approach. The issue of "jobs" (of the salmon farmers) must never come before conservation. It is also our opinion that in the long run far more jobs will stem from a fully rebuilt wild salmon resource. We have the hard evidence now to show that salmon netpen rearing is in many ways a violent foreign corporate assault upon our wild salmon heritage. Remember that lobbyists from that industry forced the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Province of British Columbia,against their will, to allow the importation of Atlantic salmon eggs (this is still done). The use of these fish here in open netcages is still not,and can never be, acceptable public policy. If fishers once successfully forced the Minister to allow a commercial opening, should they also be allowed to do this in perpetuity? The Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council,(a government appointed watchdog) in it's inability to take full-on the most urgent and compelling conservation issues, has become a destructive force to the wild salmon. For example, the Council should be addressing the fact that Canada presently has an implicit policy that puts first and foremost the large scale industrial netpen production of farmed salmon. This policy means that the wild salmon will clearly decline and disappear in many areas. Remember that even in Norway, very large areas have been now been zoned off-limits to the netpen rearing of salmon, to protect the remaining wild salmon. Salmon conservation work is something I do to help reverse the incredibly precipitous decline of our wild salmon heritage, even in my lifetime. I actually have great faith in the technical ability of DFO to manage wild salmon, but when I see that agency suddenly lobbied into a corner by the salmon farmers, it is time to expose the event of that lobby, and the degree to which it conflicts with the public interest. And if the DF0-funded Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council is truly free to say what it wants, then let's hear it say, consistently, and loudly, that threats to wild salmon caused by netcage salmon rearing are very real. Otherwise, it really is time for the auditor-general to shut down this Council, and free-up these individuals for the job they once did (usually without pay) so well for Canada. Yours Sincerely, Many thanks for your generous and comprehensive review of our book Salmon Nation on A River Never Sleeps! I am especially pleased that you chose to focus on the maps, which most other reviewers have overlooked but which, as you note, do make a powerful statement about the urgency of the situation facing salmon and salmon waters. Thanks again for your kind words. We are proud to be featured on your website. -Ted Wolf {E-mail letters may be edited for clarity, taste and brevity. It is understood they express the opinions of the writers, not the editors.} |
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