Marine Tourism Operators for Wild Salmon

Jun 18 2018  

To:    Honourable Doug Donaldson
Minister of Forest, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development
FLNR.Minister [at] gov.bc.ca

Honourable Lana Popham
Minister of Agriculture
AGR.Minister [at] gov.bc.ca

Honourable George Heyman
Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy
ENV.Minister [at] gov.bc.ca

Member of Parliament Terry Beech
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans
Terry.Beech [at] parl.gc.ca

cc.     Honourable Premier John Horgan (premier [at] gov.bc.ca)
         Honourable Green Party Leader and MLA Andrew Weaver (andrew.weaver.mla [at] leg.bc.ca)

Dear Ministers Donaldson, Popham and Heyman and Parliamentary Secretary Terry Beech:  

We are tourism business owners and organizations in BC whose companies provide services such as whale-watching, fishing, kayaking, and bear-watching to hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Our businesses and livelihoods depend on the continued existence of healthy wild salmon in the rivers, inlets, and channels of the British Columbia coast. The wilderness tourism sector generates $1.5 billion in annual expenditures and supports 26,000 full-time jobs. We are uniting to express our grave concern about the negative effects of open-net fish farming on wild stocks.  

New science indicates a dangerous virus known as Piscine Orthoreovirus (PRV) is spread from open-net salmon farms to wild salmon, impeding their ability to migrate and spawn. Open-net salmon farming is also ruining B.C.’s international reputation as a wilderness tourism destination. Last fall underwater footage flashed around the world showing plumes of bloody effluent from farmed fish processing plants being released into our pristine waters near Campbell River and Tofino. Samples taken from the bloody effluent tested positive for PRV. The Broughton Archipelago, a critical migration route for wild salmon, has the highest concentration of open-net fish farms in the province. Clayoquot Sound is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve that's home to all five species of Pacific salmon and has another 20 open-net fish farms. 

We urge the Province of British Columbia and Government of Canada to take immediate precautionary action to protect wild salmon from open-net pen fish farming.  

Specifically, we are calling on government to swiftly implement the following measures:  

1. To enact a coast-wide moratorium on new fish farms, to not renew expiring permits, and to freeze production levels at existing fish farms.  

1. To support the creation of an independent scientific advisory panel with full and unrestricted access to government and industry fish health data and science. 

1. To assess the status of all BC wild salmon populations and their habitats and implement rebuilding plans without delay. 

1. To use a mix of federal and provincial government funding and incentives to promote investment and innovation towards facilitating an immediate transition to a land-based closed containment fish farming in B.C.  

It's time for the B.C. and federal government to put wild salmon first. We are the stewards of a globally recognized wild salmon resource. It is our duty to protect that resource. Together and united, we can ensure that open-net salmon farming will no longer threaten the future of wild salmon, the Indigenous Peoples way of life, and the coastal communities and businesses that depend on a healthy and robust ecosystem.  

Signed,