Dear Bernadette Jordan, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans,

Earlier this week, you paved the way for the renewal of 18 fish farms in the Discovery Islands on Laich-kwil-tach waters off the east coast of Vancouver Island. You may as well have laid out the red carpet for wild salmon extinction on the Fraser River. At one point, salmon from this river flowing through Vancouver were one of the largest by weight animal migrations in the world. Weighing more than the African buffalo or northern caribou migrations. Unfortunately, those numbers have steadily declined due to the cumulative impacts of fish farms, industrial logging & commercial fishing.

In 2012, the Cohen Commission by the Federal Government reported on the decline of Fraser River salmon stocks and made clear recommendations of how to stop the decline. Recommendation number 19 called for a prohibition of Discovery Island fish farms by Sept 30th, 2020 unless there was proof that the farms posed only a “minimal risk of serious harm to the health of migrating salmon”.

Why the discovery islands are so important is they act as a geographical chokepoint for the Fraser River salmon coming from the open ocean towards the river. We would never think of putting an industrial chicken factory in a bird sanctuary with all its influenzas, viruses, waste and antibiotics. Yet that is exactly what your government has done for over 30 years in the Discovery Islands by putting industrial fish farms on the pathways of wild salmon migrations. 

This past Monday, September 28th in response to the Cohen Commission, your office declared there was no risk of serious harm and allowed those 18 fish farms to continue to operate in the area.  Your study did not look into the impacts of sea lice, one of the leading causes of juvenile salmon mortality. Neither did your office study the viruses that flow from the farms to the wild salmon cumulatively. On top of this you only used government and industry data rather than independent peer-reviewed science. Can we really trust a government department that is both mandated to regulate and promote an industry or has the conflict of interest become too clear?

The week before your announcement, you asked for unity and dialogue on the conflict of the lobster fisheries in Mikmak territory on the east coast where settler lobster fishermen are in a tense, racist and aggressive fight over an Indigenous communities’ ability to issue “moderate livelihood permits”. But I wonder if you’d really listen if there was unity. On the west coast, 101 BC First Nation Bands, along with commercial, eco-tourism and sport fishing operators demanded a removal of the 18 fish farms on the discovery islands days before your announcement of “minimal risk”.

But alas, I know I shouldn’t be asking you for change. Since the birth of this country extinction for market forces has always been the name of the game. At one point in history there was over 50 million buffalo across the plains of North America. They provided everything that was ever necessary. Food, shelter, cultural connection & clothing for indigenous peoples. Not only did they support humans but because of them Grizzly bears roamed in trails from Alaska to Mexico.  Can you imagine what that would have looked like?!  The government at the time created an extermination policy saying there was a market for the hides. That the development of a buffalo hide industry would create progress and wipe out the food sovereignty of indigenous Nations.

Unfortunately, history seems to repeat itself when masked in different words. In modern times our government justifies the drastic decline in wild salmon; a food & cultural backbone of coastal Indigenous Nations, because there is a market for the farmed version. Unlike farmed fish driven solely for the sake of corporate profit, wild salmon are vital not just for humans. Wild Salmon carry the energy derived from sunlight hitting the open ocean, up the rivers, deep into the forests. Over 100 different species of animals including humans bring salmon biomass into the forests which help fix the soil with nitrogen. This energy feeds coastal forests that capture carbon and release oxygen. The more salmon return, the more a forest grows, the more carbon is removed from the atmosphere. This relationship is recorded in the growth ring size of each tree through history. Salmon feed the trees that make the oxygen we breathe and the lungs that stabilize our climate. We live in salmon forests and never have they been more important than in a climate emergency. We have a responsibility to remove these  fish farms off our coast and that work is being done already.

Musgamagw Dza’wada’enuxw & Namgis territories are just North of the Discovery Islands. The territories are home to one-third of BC’s fish farms and the industry had never been given consent from their leaderships and communities. They’d seen a steady decline in their salmon populations and decided to act before it was too late. 3 years ago, Community members, chiefs, elders, women and children went out and occupied fish farms for over 200 days. Their courageous stand brought supporters from up and down the coast. Camping on industrial fish farms, fending off RCMP intimidation and exposing footage of the terrible conditions within the farms. There work was both heroic and exhausting. Many suffer from PTSD from the experience. Yet, their work in conjunction with solidarity events in urban centres and political pressure paid off as already several fish farms are being moved out of their territory due to the conflict with the rest to be removed over the upcoming years. This year recent date show an explosion of sea lice in Clayoquot Sound and the Discovery Islands yet in the one area where farms were occupied and removed sea lice numbers have dropped. I can’t help but think that these everyday individuals have become the immune system this coast so badly needs.

So Fisheries Minister although I’m saddened by your decision to allow fish farms to stay in the Discovery Islands, I must say I’m not surprised. And like I mentioned before, maybe this letter shouldn’t really be about you. Asking power to conceded is rather futile. But in my experience rising up to that power with collective and direct action is a force to be reckoned with.  So, on that note, this letter isn’t really for you, it’s for my friends, my family and the people I know who are fighting tooth and nail to protect the biodiversity and beauty of this coast. And it’s for the salmon who despite the gauntlet of challenges show us the potential of a species. Salmon, whose responsibility to its children have it swimming against the currents of raging rivers, jumping up on giant cliffs, navigating predators and against all odds succeeding to make its way hundreds of kilometers up river to reproduce. While all the while feeding everything around it; the bears, the wolves, the humans, the soil. An animal, a species acting out its responsibility to its future kin while giving back to every other living being on this land we call home…

Links Below

Musgmagw Dzawada’enuwx Nation Cleansing Our Waters Site
www.mdtc.ca/cleansing-our-waters
Alexandra Morton’s Site
https://www.alexandramorton.ca/
Fishermen Against Fish Farms
https://www.facebook.com/groups/375630722826057/
Swanson Occupation
https://www.facebook.com/GETTHEFISHFARMSOUT
Namgis Owned Land Based Fish Farm;
http://www.kuterra.com/
Simon Agar Photography
https://www.simonagerphotography.com/