And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
From: "chris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Natives test Pacific salmon stocks
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 11:12:41 -0700
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Native fishermen check salmon stocks on West Coast
WebPosted Sat Oct 9 11:39:20 1999
VICTORIA - While tensions in the fishery have eased somewhat in the East,
seven native bands on southern Vancouver Island are literally testing the
waters this weekend.
Members of half a dozen bands are cooperating on a test fishery for pink and
chum salmon, checking the condition of salmon stocks with the help of a
marine biologist.
It will be a small fishery with only two boats out on the water, but native
leaders say they hope the results will show there is enough fish to support
the commercial fishery.
Native leaders announced their plans to start a limited fishery without the
permission of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans last Thursday.
Native fishers hope to keep their test salmon fishery peaceful. They say
they are not looking for a fight but are determined to assert their rights.
The bands have asked the DFO to send an adviser to help keep the peace. But
Chief Robert Sam says he has no doubt the same sorts of problems experienced
on the East Coast will arise out west.
"We've already got a survival coalition here made up of commercial
fishermen, and their agenda is to stop any aboriginal groups from exercising
their rights," Sam said.
Native leaders say that while native fishermen hope to make a living, they
will put conservation first.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans says there is no scheduled opening
this weekend but it has not threatened to halt the fishery.
The Fisheries Survival Coalition will be watching unhappily from a distance.
Its members oppose what they see as racially based fisheries and plan to be
on the water this weekend as well.
Native leaders from the Nanoose First Nation believe the recent Marshall
ruling, covering the Mi'kmaq in the Maritimes, applies to them as well.
Nanoose is covered by the 150-year-old Douglas Treaty, which Chief Wayne
Edwards says gives members the right to fish "as though we were the sole
occupants of the land."
A B.C. expert on native issues says that view may well be right. But one way
or the other, the province or Ottawa is obliged to negotiate with bands that
want to fish out of season.
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine
of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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