B.C. government interested in moving from open ocean to land based fish farms: Minister

Spawning sockeye salmon are seen making their way up the Adams River in Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park near Chase, B.C. Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014. B.C.

BY: AINSLIE CRUICKSHANK. Metro Published on Mon Mar 05 2018

The B.C. and federal governments are facing renewed pressure from First Nations and environmental organizations to ban open net salmon farming, which critics say poses a risk to wild salmon, after the Washington State legislature voted Friday to phase out the controversial practice.

​Both B.C.'s American neighbours – Washington and Alaska – now prohibit marine fish farming.

Kwikwasut'inuxw Haxwa'mis First Nation Chief Bob Chamberlin says this could put B.C. at a disadvantage in ongoing Pacific Salmon Treaty negotiations.

“It’s going to be a pretty hollow argument for more fish when the people on the other side of the table are going to say you’re not protecting the fish, why should you get more?” he said.

He'd like to see B.C. follow Washington’s lead by not renewing fish farm tenures coming up for renewal, including the 18 tenures in the Broughton Archipelago area set to expire this June.

Those tenures fall within the territory of Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis and four other First Nations, for whom salmon is critically important.

“My first memories as a small child in our village on Guilford Island was watching my grandmother work on fish and going out fishing for all kinds of species of fish with my uncles when I was a little boy,” Chamberlin said.

“From the beginning of my time fishing has been a major piece of who we are as people and today I talk about those things as Aboriginal Rights protected by the constitution and supported by the Supreme Court of Canada but it comes down to that experience of my family and the connection I had to the lands and resources of my people,” he said.

“I want that so badly for my son and my grandchildren if I’m gifted to have grandchildren,” he said.

The federal and provincial governments each have a role to play in the regulation and licensing of fish farms.

In a statement provided to Metro by a spokesperson, Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development Minister Doug Donaldson said “we’re committed to wild salmon. We’re also interested in transitioning from an open ocean system to a land based system where feasible.”

A spokesperson for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans meanwhile said the its regulatory regime is “robust and minimizes the risks against escapes of farmed Atlantic salmon such as occurred in Washington.”

The risks to wild salmon, however, go beyond escaped farmed salmon.

Salmon stocks, particularly Sockeye salmon, are in “free fall,” said Stan Proboszcz, the science and campaign advisor for Watershed Watch, a charity focused on the conservation of B.C.’s wild salmon. The majority of them migrate past fish farms where they can be exposed to both parasites, like sea lice, and pathogens, like Piscine Reovirus, he said.

Previous expert reports, including the Cohen Commission, have suggested one problem is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans dual mandate of fish conservation and promotion of the fish farming industry.

Proboszcz wants to see DFO abandon its promotional efforts and focus solely on conserving B.C.’s iconic salmon. As for the province, he — like Chamberlin — wants to see existing fish farm tenures lapse.

Chamberlin said the B.C. government agreed to work with the First Nations through a “consent based” decision making process on the fish farm issues in the Broughton Archipelago issue in January.

Following that meeting between governments, the First Nations sent a draft framework to guide that decision-making process. That was more than two weeks ago and Chamberlin said he still hasn’t received a response.

The timeline is only getting tighter, he said. There’s just three months before the Broughton Archipelago area fish farms tenures are set to be renewed.

The B.C. Salmon Farmers Association did not respond to a request for comment by publication. A Canadian Press story published this weekend notes that association says the industry, which employs more than 6,000 people, is well managed.