Canada considers adopting U.S. Beaufort Sea fishing moratorium

Canada considers adopting U.S. Beaufort Sea fishing moratorium

Impact of climate change prompts ban pending more research

Canadian officials are quietly exploring a possible moratorium on large-scale commercial fishing in the Beaufort Sea, a move that would match a decision announced last week by the U.S. government, Canwest News Service has learned.

But lingering uncertainties about the long-term impact of climate change on the Arctic environment, and about the best strategies to sustainably exploit potential new fisheries in the region prompted the U.S. North Pacific Fishery Management Council to recommend earlier this year that industrial-scale harvests be banned pending further research.

Locke accepted that recommendation on Thursday, insisting that despite strong prospects for snow crab, Arctic cod and saffron cod fisheries, too little is known about fish stocks to sanction commercial operations.

"As Arctic sea ice recedes due to climate change, there is increasing interest in commercial fishing in Arctic waters," said Locke. "We are in a position to plan for sustainable fishing that does not damage the overall health of this fragile ecosystem. This plan takes a precautionary approach to any development of commercial fishing in an area where there has been none in the past."

The U.S. will continue to allow small-scale, subsistence fishing among its native populations -- as any moratorium in this country would, Canadian officials say.

In Canada, Beaufort Sea fishing is regulated by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in collaboration with six Inuit communities in the Western Arctic under terms of the 1984 Inuvialuit Final Agreement land claim.

Burton Ayles, a former DFO scientist who's now a federal appointee with the Inuvialuit region's Fisheries Joint Management Committee, told Canwest News Service that discussions have begun on "how we might proceed if we do want to have a commercial fisheries moratorium in the Canadian Beaufort."

Ayles said the same key factor behind the U.S. moratorium -- lack of knowledge about the changes happening to the Beaufort ecosystem -- is driving Canada's own discussions about a possible commercial fishing ban.

Vancouver Sun, August 24, 2009, By Mary Ellen Walling

Over the past several years, there have been concerns expressed about challenges facing our wild fisheries. In British Columbia, we have seen the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye fishery; in Washington, the low returns of ocean coho are worrying sport and commercial fishers; in Oregon and California, the collapse of the chinook population for the second year is confounding scientists, fishers, and environmentalists.

In B.C. we seem to have opted for another approach: a polarized debate that pits wild-salmon purists against salmon farmers. Unfavourable ocean conditions, habitat destruction, urbanization, or climate changes that have reduced the amount of salmon food in the ocean are cited by some scientists as factors detrimental to wild salmon populations. These scientists are shouted down by those who insist there is only one cause for diminishing returns: salmon farming. We are told in no uncertain terms that salmon farming on B.C.'s coast is driving salmon to extinction.

Can this be true?

There are morfe than 75 salmon farms operating off B.C.'s long coast at any given time. These farms operate in a jurisdiction that has more environmental regulation than any other salmon farming region in the world. And the B.C. farms operate under the constant scrutiny of the province's many environmental organizations.

When it comes to research, scientists know how difficult it is to really prove anything.

Most of their work considers cause and effect and it often requires years of work to establish a link between the two.

Most serious scientists are cautious about claiming to have conclusively proven something: their training and research tells them how difficult it is to declare something definitively.

But those with a passionate point of view often don't feel the need to wait for this process. They report on what they feel to be true and they evoke the precautionary principle when challenged to support their claims: what if it is true and we don't act?

So what are we to make of those who assert that salmon farming is the sole cause of B.C's diminishing wild salmon population? Or that sea lice from salmon farms in the Broughton will force indigenous pink salmon into extinction?

In the case of pink salmon in the Broughton there is considerable disagreement about the health of that population and about the possible effects of sea lice coming from salmon farms.

Many of those who dispute the claim hold PhDs in biology, aquatic science, and veterinary medicine from respected universities in North America and Europe. Opposing scientists would have us believe that these men and women are not to be trusted because they work for business, industry, or government. We must ask ourselves, should we value their opinion less because they have chosen to work, or be funded by business, industry, or government? Surely the answer is no.

Scientists working for environmental organizations have a legitimate right to be involved in the decision-making process on issues such as salmon farming. However, their use of sensational claims has created an ethical battlefield where business interests are portrayed as being in opposition to environmental interests.

To be successful in addressing the factors that are adversely affecting wild salmon populations in B.C., business, industry, government and non governmental organizations will need to work together. We need to have rational discussions about the cause and possible effects and we need to work together to move beyond rhetoric towards solutions.

Mary Ellen Walling is executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association.

Where have all the salmon gone?

And where on Earth are our public watchdogs? Scientists tipped them to this tragedy in 2007

Approximately 130 million baby sockeye from the Chilko, Quesnel and other interior river systems -- the largest producers of the most valuable commercial stocks on the Fraser system -- appear to have vanished during their annual migration to the sea in 2007.

Even at the lowest marine survival ever recorded, the returning Chilko Lake run alone should be a million fish in 2009, noted one science journal in 2008. At even average survival, around six million mature sockeye should return to the system, observed the entry in Pices, published by the North Pacific Marine Sciences Organization. Instead it seems only a tiny number are now likely to return. In fact, this season's abundance is projected to be among the poorest in half a century.

What happened? What might the disappearance signify for future sockeye runs? Is this a harbinger of a coming collapse for other wild salmon stocks?

What might this mean for the survival of other species -- bears, eagles, killer whales, small aquatic creatures that depend upon nutrients from decaying salmon carcasses and provide feed for trout, sturgeon, insects -- that rely on these salmon returns?

Have we so degraded the Fraser that we are now in the early stages of an Atlantic cod scenario for British Columbia's iconic wild salmon? Is there something else going on in this enormous ecosystem that has implications for us humans who are perched atop the food chain, perhaps more precariously than we like to think?

Our provincial government has invested $615,000 to help B.C.'s commercial fisheries obtain eco-certification as a sustainable industry from the London-based Marine Stewardship Council. How do you argue that a system where you lose 130 million baby fish, can't account for them and are having the poorest returns in 50 years is in any way sustainable?

Most important, why aren't we talking about this astonishing, colossal event in these broader terms instead of listening to Indian bands, sports anglers and commercial interests squabbling endlessly over the tattered remnants of what should have been a tremendous return while stunned fisheries managers blather about the difficulty of making the predictions they routinely make and try to calculate how many dwindling sockeye it will be OK to kill as by-catch in other fisheries?

The mystery begins at Chilko Lake where the number of smolts that had hatched in 2005 and left in spring of 2007, was stupendous -- double the greatest number ever recorded in the half century since fisheries managers first began keeping records.

Not only that, the escaping smolts were substantially larger and stronger than ever recorded and were therefore much better adapted to survive the rigours both of their migration down the Fraser and during the early stages of their two years spent growing to full size in the Pacific.

But surveys conducted in the Strait of Georgia by the federal department of fisheries and oceans in July of 2007 found only 157 sockeye smolts where test nets should have been teeming with specimens from the huge Chilko and Quesnel lakes outmigration.

Test fisheries in September picked up larger numbers of sockeye smolts, but I'm told that almost all of these fish were from a run originating in Harrison Lake that, unlike other runs, migrates almost immediately to the sea.

This remarkable event led scientists from the federal government's fisheries and oceans working group to advance a much more pessimistic prediction for sockeye returns to the Fraser in 2009, which it warned, "may be extremely poor."

What happened to those juvenile fish in such mind-boggling numbers represents a biological event that should be at the top of the agenda for every fisheries scientist, conservationist, politician, environmental organization and ordinary citizen who cares about British Columbia's ecological health, let alone the survival of wild salmon.

Yet there's just this mystifying, numb, business-as-usual wrangling about who should get to catch what among the various interest groups and a stunning, inexcusable, shameful silence from the politicians who oversee management of the resource.

Oh, I know, a couple of New Democratic Party MPs finally woke up to the issue late last week and started making political hay by blaming the federal Conservatives -- a fair point, since it's happened on the Tories' watch and they are the ones setting policy and are therefore accountable -- but where on Earth have our politicians been while this unfolded?

Why, since the scientists knew about it in 2007, did we only learn about it in 2009 when the overly optimistic miscalculations of the fisheries bureaucrats became undeniable? What does this say about the federal government's policy of muzzling scientists who come bearing bad news?

Where are Chuck Strahl and John Cummins on this issue? Where's Sukh Dhaliwal and Ujjal Dosanjh? Where are Ed Fast and Dick Harris? The Fraser River and its salmon runs affect all their constituencies.

Where, for that matter, is Barry Penner, the provincial environment minister from Chilliwack? Why isn't he on the front line advocating major reforms in the way this B.C. resource is being managed?

Most important, where's our invisible, deer-in-the-headlights federal fisheries minister, Gail Shea? What's the policy? What's the contingency plan? What's being done to find out what happened?

This isn't just about missing fish, embarrassed bureaucrats, squabbling stakeholders and tap-dancing politicians. It's about us. It's about who we are as citizens of a democracy. And it's about whether something big is going on that's causing an entire ecosystem to unravel -- an ecosystem on which we happen to depend, too.

25 August 2009

Sustainable agriculture key to recovery from financial crisis in Asia – UN

Any recovery programme to pull the Asia-Pacific region out of the global recession, which has morphed into a food crisis, must include sustainable agriculture measures, participants concluded at a United Nations meeting in Beijing.

At an event marking thee decades of cooperation between China and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), speakers underscored the need for stronger South-South cooperation to respond to the challenges posed by food insecurity and climate change.

Agriculture drives the livelihoods of the poor in the region – home to two-thirds of the world’s undernourished – and employs 60 per cent of the working population, Noeleen Heyzer, ESCAP’s Executive Secretary, said in her keynote address to the meeting yesterday.

Let us leverage our strengths to create a more integrated and inclusive Asia-Pacific region – free from poverty, free from want and free from hunger

“If future economic development is to be sustainable and inclusive, significant investments are required by governments to promote the development of pro-poor agricultural systems,” she noted.

Rising food prices, compounded by fluctuating energy costs and the current financial crisis, has made innovation in agricultural technology vital, the UN official stressed.

The key to driving such advances lies in South-South cooperation, which “holds the key to building upon the best of what our region has to offer,” Ms. Heyzer said. “Let us leverage our strengths to create a more integrated and inclusive Asia-Pacific region – free from poverty, free from want and free from hunger.”

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ENVIRONMENT NEWS FROM THE

S.G’s SPOKESMAN DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
25 August 2009
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

I.P.C.C. CHAIR TO BRIEF TOMORROW AT U.N. HEADQUARTERS: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Chair of the IPCC, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri will give a briefing on "The Scientific Basis for Climate Policy" tomorrow, Wednesday, 26 August 2009, from 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m. The briefing to Member States and interested stakeholders will be held in the ECOSOC Chamber.

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