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. This a reprinted version of the 2002 Vol. 21 No.5

Wild Fish Need Wild Rivers & Oceans

Co-Published by Wilderness Committee & Union of BC Indian Chiefs, Vol. 21, No. 5 — FALL 2002

Solutions Need to Deal with Cause of Collapse

Article by Western Canada Wilderness Committee © 2002.

Governments need to recognize that heritage of our salmon stocks is not negotiable. British Columbians demand that effective action be taken to ensure that this shared legacy is not lost.

  • All open net-pen aquaculture must be halted. Land-based closed containment systems are the only acceptable fish farm.
  • Forest companies need to be held accountable for the damage they have done to salmon habitat. The BC government has estimated a potential need for 20 to 40 years of hill-slope and stream rehabilitation at $50 to $100 million per year, just to repair past damage.
  • Existing laws such as the section 35 of federal Fisheries Act that prohibits harmful alteration of fish habitat need to be enforced.

We also need to draw on the vast knowledge First Nations have used to ensure a sustainable fishery for millenia. Together with redcedar, salmon allowed the Indigenous Peoples of the North Pacific to build what is believed to be the largest and most complex society in the world that did not depend on herding or agriculture for survival. Sustainable and selective types of fishing such as dip netting and terminal fisheries need to be given priority.