To mark Earth Day 2011, we'd like to say a few words about a group of people who used to be shall we say, none too popular around these parts: environmentalists. Say what you will about them. Say they've got their facts wrong. Say their logic is askew. But except in rare circumstances, don't try to question their motivations.
During the past week, after a column about wild vs. farmed salmon by Nicole Trigg appeared in The Chief, someone did just that. At least one who commented about the column online appeared to be saying that on the issue of open-net salmon farming in B.C., environmentalists aren't just wrong - the person leading the campaign for stricter regulation of the salmon farming industry, biologist Alexandra Morton, is doing so because she's supported by those with vested interests in discrediting the industry.
The argument went something like this: Those heading up Alaska's commercial fishing industry see the growing B.C. salmon farming industry as competition and are somehow helping to fund Morton's research into the impact of sea lice and other pathogens from salmon farms on B.C.'s wild salmon stocks. This writer may not be as well versed in such matters as some, but isn't yet convinced - and either way, don't see that as the crux of the issue. In the meantime, a few things we do know:
The fish farming industry in B.C. is buttressed by a well-organized group called Positive Aquaculture Awareness, whose mission is to "provide accurate information about B.C. aquaculture and to challenge myths about B.C. salmon farming." Vested interests, anyone?
The debate over salmon farming hinges not on certain people's countries of birth, nor on politics, but on science.
Most of B.C.'s salmon farms are owned by companies based in Norway, where a debate about the impact of fish farms on wild Atlantic salmon stocks has been raging for years. To the writer who stated, "Frankly I think the less said about Norway the more conductive [sic] it is to dealing with Canadian issues," we say: We respectfully but strongly disagree.
In 1999, Georg Fredrik Rieber-Mohn, former head of the Great Wild Salmon Commission of Norway, presented a proposal for protection of the country's 50 best salmon rivers and nine most important fjord systems. "Intense lobbying from the salmon farming industry watered down the proposals so that by the time it passed the parliament in 2007, the protected fjords became smaller and gave less protection against the salmon farming industry," he wrote last year.
The result? "Atlantic salmon in the wild in Norway are now threatened with extinction in many rivers There are many causes to this decline, but in vast areas the farming of salmon is the main factor. Escaped farmed salmon is a huge problem, added to the problem of uncontrolled growth of sea lice. Scientists foresee remarkable damaging effects in new areas in the future."
To that, we can only emphasize the importance of basing future decisions about the industry in B.C. on sound science, and of doing all we can to heed of the lessons to be learned from the mistakes of others.
- David Burke
