The Nanaimo Daily News, Published: Tuesday, February 02, 2010
The effort to demonize fish farming has been a sad saga to watch.
While the opponents of fish farms have successfully, and rightly, pointed out certain problems that the farms pose to wild salmon, namely sea lice, the movement presents a black-and-white view that fish farms create the risk we could lose our wild salmon stocks.
If only it were that simple. While the sea lice connection has been made, the science is just not there to prove that the continued existence of fish farms will destroy all wild salmon.
The fish farming industry acknowledges that, despite many great efforts on their part, more must be done.
They have a viable industry and are committed to sustainable practices.
There are other culprits when it comes to damage to salmon stocks.
Global warming, over-fishing and pollution probably add up to a much greater threat than fish farms.
There is no doubt that the decision by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Hinkson to put fish farms under federal jurisdiction was the right one.
For the province to make the argument that fish farms were "agricultural" was silly.
Activist and biologist Alexandra Morton is advocating for the Department of Fisheries to force fish farms to measure the effect on wild fish.
It's not a bad idea and if the fish farm industry, as Morton claims, will not publicly disclose their current findings, then this is a good step toward accountability.
But this opens up the new issue of how the DFO will respond to and monitor those other things that have an effect on salmon stocks.
If the DFO, in the name of wild salmon, is going to heavily regulate fish farms, then it also has to begin taking a serious look at those other things that harm salmon stocks.
A regulatory regime for fish farms from Ottawa is a good idea and the industry welcomes any framework that will assist it in becoming sustainable.
But if activists like Morton and others hope that Ottawa will regulate fish farms out of existence, then they will have a very political fight on their hands and it's one they cannot win.
This country is not going to see the destruction of a viable and profitable industry like fish farming. All over the globe, this is an industry that has flourished and we are falling behind in many ways.
What we need from Ottawa is a regime for fish farming that will impose rules that will protect wild stocks and, at the same time, allow this industry to grow so it can be globally competitive.
Despite the claims of activists that fish farming is a threat to wild salmon, it is likely that we can have both a wild fishery and a fish-farming business.
The activists have evidence to make the claim in their sea lice findings, but not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that fish farming is the only cause of declining salmon stocks.
The problem of interaction between wild and farmed salmon is just one small problem in the much wider issue of threats to our oceans.
It is something that can be managed, provided the fish-farming industry can show that its measures are sustainable and safe and do mitigate any effects on wild salmon.
The moratorium on new fish farm licences until the DFO comes out with new regulations is unfortunate, but makes sense.
We have to hope that this province can then see the growth of fish farms that present no threat to wild salmon.
