EDITOR,
Thank you for the excellent story filed by David Burke entitled, "'Rogue' researchers make pitch for legitimacy" (Chief, Sept. 26) on the work our corporation is doing and which is funded by the Haida Village of Old Massett. We welcome the opportunity to tell our side of the story. This report is factually correct with two notable exceptions, which we would ask you to correct and a third point which was missed:
We are not "suing" Environment Canada, nor did they "confiscate" any of our data. Environment Canada executed search warrants as part of their investigative process. We are asking a judge in B.C. Supreme Court to set aside the search warrant, as there is no legislation in Canada that applies to our ocean research, which was not dumping as defined under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. In fact, the federal Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney also conducted an ocean iron fertilization experiment in 2002 - without a permit, simply because there is no permit process in place to regulate this activity, yet. We hope that our ongoing dialogue with Environment Canada and other stakeholders will produce a finite set of rules and regulations governing this process and have a very positive impact on our salmon throughout British Columbia.
At the start of our talk we asked a series of critically important questions of the audience which included: Is climate change real? Have fisheries improved over the past 100 years? What practical solution have you personally applied to address the above questions?
Antarctic explorer Robert Swan is quoted as saying, "The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it." We simply decided to embrace science, the motivation of a small first nations community, and act.
We would be pleased to answer any more questions you may have.
Jason McNamee
Director and Chief Operations Officer
Haida Salmon Restoration Corp.
