And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
From: "chris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Tensions mount as natives fish in off-season
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 21:38:53 -0700
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****NOTE: For those with audio capabilities, I have attached a RealPlayer
audio file from the CBC radio national evening news program from Sept
27.1999 on this same issue. It details the non-native fishers threatening
"war" upon the native fishers.
***********
TENSIONS MOUNT AS NATIVES FISH IN OFF-SEASON
The Globe and Mail
September 30, 1999.
Mariners charge stocks being hurt; aboriginals' boats
vandalized while they exercise right to harvest
KEVIN COX
Atlantic Bureau
Thursday, September 30, 1999
Fredericton -- Atlantic native leaders have rejected pleas to call a halt to
the aboriginal lobster fishery in order to reduce tense situations in
several East Coast communities.
Members of the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nations Chiefs agreed
yesterday that they would work with other fishery groups to establish
conservation guidelines and do independent research on the fish stocks, but
they insisted aboriginal fishermen have the right to stay on the water while
those negotiations take place.
About 100 Micmacs and Maliseets are now fishing for lobster off northern New
Brunswick and southwestern Nova Scotia, asserting their right to fish for a
living that was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada two weeks ago.
That controversial decision has angered many non-native fishermen, who say
that the native people are damaging the lobster stocks by fishing out of
season. There have been reports of vandalism on native boats, and groups in
Yarmouth and Burnt Church have threatened to take aboriginal fishing gear
out of the water if the fishing effort does not stop.
Yesterday, the Maritime Fishermen's Union demanded that the federal
Department of Fisheries and Oceans close the Miramichi Bay area to all
lobster fishing.
But Chief Lawrence Paul, co- chairman of the aboriginal congress, insisted
that there are not enough native fishermen on the water to harm the lobster
stocks. He noted that in Nova Scotia native people make up less than 1 per
cent of the fishermen.
"We felt that this small number of fishermen was not going to hurt the
fishing industry in any way or deplete the fishery in any way," Mr. Paul
told a news conference.
He added that the native fishermen have been abiding by DFO regulations by
not taking small lobsters or females with eggs.
The DFO has charged three fishermen in Yarmouth -- two of whom claim to be
Métis and one who is a non-native person -- with fishing for lobster in a
closed season and illegal possession of traps. They were fishing on a boat
owned by a member of the Acadia First Nation.
A directive sent to all DFO enforcement officers earlier this week
instructed them not to take action against native fishermen who are obeying
conservation regulations.
Even if the fishery were closed for conservation reasons, the enforcement
officers were told that they should warn fishermen to get off the water and
charge them only if they did not leave the area.
However, the officers were told to take action against any non-native people
who were found fishing during the closed season, even if they were on boats
owned by native people who have the right to fish.
A DFO spokesman in Halifax said yesterday that enforcement officers have not
seen any violations of conservation regulations by native fishermen since
the court'sdecision.
The chiefs also insisted that only status Indians can be recognized as
having the right to fish as was set down in a treaty in 1760 and upheld by
the Supreme Court. That move will anger hundreds of non-status Indians
living off reserves who are now coming forward to claim the right to hunt
and fish affirmed by the courts.
Mr. Paul appealed to increasingly militant non-native fishermen to be
patient as negotiations continue for the new native fishery.
"They must realize that we have the rule of the law behind us. By our
cultures and our traditions, we are a sharing people -- but the rules of the
game have now changed," he said.
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/
UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE
http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/
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