The Right to Fish?
When government policies destroy the environment, have they abrogated the right of citizens?
This paper looks at this question from the perspective of Indigenous Peoples who have an explicit constitutional right to fish. Yet both the federal and provincial governments have accelerated the decline of Pacific Coast fisheries with policies that encourage overfishing, bad logging practices and now risk total collapse of the stocks with approval of fish farms up and down the coast.
Fish Farms: Zero Tolerance
An Indigenous Perspective on BC's Fish Farm
Article adopted from "Fish Farms: Zero Tolerence", Union of BC Indian chiefs © 2002.
Salmon and all marine life are a vital resource to all Indigenous Nations. Any actions which threaten salmon or marine life, threaten our well-being and the livelihood of our Peoples. Fish farms destroy their immediate environment, and threaten marine life and wild fish stocks.
All Indigenous Nations have territories which include either oceans, rivers, streams or lakes. Each and every Indigenous Nation will be impacted as a result of BC’s Agriculture Minister van Dogen’s recent move to lift the moratorium on the expansion of fish farm operations within First Nations territories. As Indigenous Peoples, we have a shared responsibility to work together in order to preserve and protect the fishery resource.
Fish farms seriously and severely impact Aboriginal Title Lands and Waters. Water is contaminated, poisoning salmon, shellfish and other marine life. The immediate dangers include disease, destruction of habitat and escaped farmed salmon displacing other marine life (such as herring and oolichan) or colonizing wild salmon stocks.
All marine resources, most notably salmon, are already deeply depleted as a result of mismanagement. Fish farms only serve to further endanger salmon stocks which are already fighting for survival.
When salmon, oolichan, shell fish and other marine resources die or are attacked, our Peoples are attacked. The Aboriginal Right to fish is vital to all Indigenous Nations and fish farms threaten to destroy that right. We will not let this happen.
Salmon are a resource treasured and shared by all Indigenous Peoples within British Columbia. They are born in one area, grow to maturity in another and live their adult lives in marine waters, to return to the place of their birth for their life cycle to continue. Salmon bind all of our Peoples together. When salmon are threatened, the livelihood and way of life of all Indigenous Peoples are threatened.
The fishery has sustained our Peoples’ for generations. We were handed this resource which our ancestors held in trust for us, and we must ensure that the fishery is an inheritance which we pass to our own future generations. Now that fish farms threaten to destroy the fishery, we have a responsibility to protect and guard this precious natural resource. As Indigenous Peoples, it is our turn to honour our responsibility and fight to sustain the future of the fishery. This is our obligation both to the salmon and all marine life, and to our future generations.
