October 4, 2000 - VANCOUVER - Tinkering with the regulations that control netcage aquaculture in British Columbia does not address the fundamental environmental concerns caused by the industry, especially those affecting ocean habitat and vulnerable wild salmon stocks, the David Suzuki Foundation said today.
"These amendements to the provincial Aquaculture Regulations are highly disappointing especially when the government is in the middle of a review process with First Nations and stakeholders. They shouldn't be making unilateral decisions if they are serious about consultation," said Lynn Hunter, the Foundation's fisheries and aquaculture specialist.
"If the government's intention is for aquaculture to be a safe component of BC's fishery industry then the only responsible action is to force fish farms to convert to closed containment technology period. Today's announcement is merely crossing Ts and dotting Is on flawed policy."
The announcement by Fisheries Minister Corky Evans and Environment Minister Joan Sawicki was also expected to include plans for new aquaculture pilot projects - something that alarms the David Suzuki Foundation given recent statements by Minister Evans, Ms. Hunter said.
"The minister has said that in order for the industry to be viable in a particular region, large numbers of fish farms would have to be located there, not just a few at a time. We are very concerned that netcages, which are responsible for hundreds of thousands of Atlantic salmon escaping into southern BC waters, will now become part of the north coast."
Last fall, the province announced that while it was not lifting the moratorium on salmon aquaculture expansion, new pilot projects using various forms of closed containment technology would also be allowed to use netcages in case the new technology failed.
"So we're really no further ahead," said Ms. Hunter. "We know salmon farmers are opposing closed containment because it will cost them more than mesh netcages but the bottom line here is not just dollars, we're talking about our marine ecology and further impacting already weak wild salmon stocks."
The BC government should look to Australia, particularly Tasmania, where the use of closed containment is legislated and cutting-edge technology being used there is manufactured in Nanaimo by FutureSea Technology, Ms. Hunter said.
"So we have the technology right here to move this industry in the right direction, what we're obviously missing is the political and business will."
Dr. David Suzuki notes that last week Scotland's Parliament ordered an independent inquiry to establish if netcage fish farming there is damaging the environment. Scottish parliamentarians are drafting a salmon conservation bill and agreed to examine claims by environmentalists, anglers and rural residents that netcage fish farms are harming the environment and wild fish stocks.
"This should be the least we could expect from our legislators instead of bureaucratic amendments like 'A person must not cause, authorize, or allow the escape of fin fish from a containment structure' or 'mesh size of netting must be small enough to contain the smallest fish.' These are the kind of amendments in the ministers' announcement, which I find pathetic," Dr. Suzuki said.
"The best human intentions in the world are not going to stop netcages from being ripped apart in storms, which happen often on our coast, and farmed salmon - including Atlantic stocks that are an exotic species - from escaping by the thousands.
"Biologists agree that the introduction of exotic species is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity in the world today, and yet in BC, politicians and salmon farmers are telling us that keeping huge numbers of an exotic species in netcages in turbulent ocean waters is okay. Well it's not okay and we call on Ministers Evans and Sawicki to show some real environmental leadership and legislate closed containment for BC fish farms," he added.
Salmon farmers and BC government officials often hold up the 1997 provincial Salmon Aquaculture Review (SAR) as proof that the industry here is safe, but the SAR was largely a literature review and did not include any original BC-based research.
Since then the province has confirmed that Atlantic salmon have reproduced in numerous Vancouver Island streams - something industry advocates and some government scientists earlier said was impossible. Critics of the netcage industry, including many First Nations, environmentalists, commercial and sports fishermen and tourism operators, fear that in addition to possibly spreading disease, Atlantic salmon will take over habitat from weakened Pacific stocks.
"When there are already five exquisitely evolved Pacific salmon species, the deliberate introduction of Atlantic salmon is ecological lunacy," Dr. Suzuki said.
For further information, please contact:
Jean Kavanagh at the David Suzuki Foundation: 604-732-4228 or
jkavanagh@davidsuzuki.org