BC salmon farmers already acting on recommendations
Odd Grydeland, FishfarmingXpert, December 3, 2012
Environmental groups and others will have a hard time keeping up with the work salmon farmers are doing to protect wild salmon says association
In the latest version of the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association newsletter, Executive Director Mary Ellen Walling suggests that most of the recommendations contained in the volumous report on wild salmon by Justice Bruce Cohen have nothing to do with salmon farming, but few of them have received much notice by environmental groups or media. She says that the industry is confident in its standards of management and accountability;
“When Justice Cohen released his final report on the Fraser River Sockeye Oct. 31, we apparently surprised people with our reaction. Our farmers and association members supported the judge’s report and recommendations and expressed continued confidence in the future of our farming community. It seems this was an unexpected perspective. Hopefully you heard the message that BC’s salmon farmers feel Justice Cohen’s report is a good one. But some people seem puzzled how we could see it that way.
It’s simple. We can easily support the report, because we’re already well down the path that Cohen has laid out. The high levels of research, the active and astute fish health monitoring, the transparency, the improvement of farm siting criteria and regular operations: these are all things that have been a high priority for many years for BC’s salmon farmers.
Our fish are healthy - our records show this and further research will continue to confirm it. Our standards for siting, feed, monitoring and infrastructure are world class. Experts at the Cohen Commission said clearly that they feel wild and farm-raised salmon can coexist. We are already meeting the expectations set out in the DFO’s Wild Salmon Policy. Our partnerships with First Nations and contribution to coastal communities are of the upmost importance. There are more opportunities on the horizon to work together and we’re steadily moving towards them.
There are many topics raised in Cohen’s report that pose more of a challenge: 62 recommendations in fact have nothing to do with salmon aquaculture. We haven’t heard as much about these in the first blush of media attention, but these will undoubtedly require much further discussion, and a lot of work to protect and restore our wild salmon. Issues like climate change and the resulting warmer water temperatures are problems with no clear solution. Billions of fish are being released from countries around the world into the North Pacific to compete with our wild salmon. Key habitat for the salmon is being damaged by urbanization and industrial progress.
Frankly, groups addressing these issues will have a hard time keeping up to the work already being done by salmon farmers. We’ll keep plowing forward with our work because we know that salmon aquaculture is a solution for the future: farming fish helps reduce the pressure on wild stocks and is one of the most efficient ways to produce a healthy food.
So, while the media may have called it a ‘brave face’ our response was actually something more authentic: it was confidence. We know that we are leading the way in setting the highest standards for management and accountability for salmon farmers around the world, and for agri-business in British Columbia”.
Reference Link: BCSFA Newsletter page: http://www.salmonfarmers.org/newsletter
