Closed Containment Aquaculture: The Solution We Seek

(Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver, B.C. – May 14, 2018) Citing dangerously low numbers of wild salmon returns, the recreational salmon fishery in the Skeena River has been forced to completely shut down. A ban has also been placed on recreational salmon fisheries in the Nass River watershed, with further limits being placed across various salmon fisheries along the entire north coast.

Chief Bob Chamberlin, Vice-President of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, states, “Wild salmon are quickly being pushed into extinction. A central impactor on the health of wild salmon is the continued imposition of open-net pen Atlantic salmon fish farms on migratory routes of wild salmon. If we are to protect this valuable species, BC and Canada must immediately move to relocate these fish farms from migratory paths to land-based containment facilities.”

In the last few years Canada and BC have received an abundance of information on the risks that salmon farms pose to wild salmon populations, including the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Finfish Aquaculture, the report of the Auditor General of Canada on Salmon Farming, the results of numerous independent and government funded, peer reviewed, scientific studies, the Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River and the voice of Indigenous leaders throughout BC. To ignore such a wealth of information and the numerous calls to both adopt the precautionary principle and to relocate the salmon aquaculture industry to land-based facilities would be a significant dereliction of duty to protect our salmon, our environment and the economy, health and culture of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities throughout BC.

Bold action is needed to ensure the continued survival of wild salmon in BC. First Nations are ready to work with the Provincial and Federal Governments, through a nation-to-nation process as affirmed by the UN Declaration, to support the relocation of open net-pen salmon farms to land-based closed containment facilities to ensure

Media inquiries: Bob Chamberlin, Union of BC Indian Chiefs Phone: (250) 974-8282

fish farms Robert Chamberlin

Showing 3 reactions

Forest Green commented 2018-05-14 21:38:05 -0700
No mention of lost revenue for tourism. No sport fisheries, no tourist money. Closed pens are not the answer. The only solution is to stop this disgusting, dirty industry.
Artthur M. Dick commented 2018-05-14 18:15:54 -0700
You are absolutely right Mr. Watt. There is not one mention of the thousands of jobs that were lost after this industry destroyed our livelihood as commercial fisherman. not one iota mention of accommodation to the starving families up and down the coast. Pictures of Alert Bay Harbour filled to brimming with 450 seine boats waiting to deliver their catch. Many many fisherman independently wealthy. Treaty says moderate living. Some were independently wealthy. Never will happen as a worker for fish farms. Our Country is well known to send millions of dollars overseas but notlook after their own destitute people. No water, housing education etc. At last count 400 million to India while our natives were living in dilapitated house up north in extreme over croeding conditions.
Laurie Watt commented 2018-05-14 17:17:05 -0700
While I agree that all open net-cage salmon feedlots on the BC coast must be immediately removed, I think it’s a mistake to link their removal to a transition to land. The industry made a business decision to place the feedlots in the ocean, and now government must force them out of the ocean. Let the industry decide what to do when they leave the ocean – it’s their business decision to make. There are many opportunities for the feedlot employees to find other jobs and job training; our governments can help with that process, but our governments should not become involved in any support to transition to land-based feedlots. The salmon feedlot industry is unsustainable in any form: as carnivores salmon require other wild fish to eat, depleting the marine food chain elsewhere, let alone the inhumane treatment of an animal (salmon) that is meant to swim freely in the world’s oceans.