Fellow VFB Members: I received the following e-mail from Alexandra Morton a short while ago asking for help in her fight to save wild salmon. For details see: http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/11/04/science/1194831199078/alexandra-mo rton-s-salmon-fight.html It is my hope that you will view this and sign her petition. DFO stands for Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and comes under federal jurisdiction. Thank you Neville (Nev) Gosling Greater Vancouver B. C. Canada
_____ From: Alexandra Morton [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 2:47 PM To: alexandra morton Subject: [peopleforfish] Asking for help Hello When you signed the letter to DFO asking the Fisheries Act to be applied to the fish "farms" you checked the box that I could contact you for help. Just let me know if you want to be removed from this list. We have about 5,400 signatures, but I think we need at least 10,000 to be considered noteworthy by Gordon Campbell and the Minister of Fisheries, Shea. In the past few hours the signatures coming in has stalled. I am hoping that you can find a way to let more people know about this. Please contact any and all who you think might sign and help us get some relief for the wild salmon. I have a small poster that can be printed and if you want me to send it let me know. Below is an article published today in the Westcoaster.ca please do what you can, I doubt we will get this close to reason again. To sign the petition to apply the Fisheries Act to fish farms the way it is applied to fishermen please click on the link below......... pass it on Thanks for your help Alexandra Morton http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cEkxX3p3MGFBbWNVVGNVU3lxQnBw Qmc6MA.. We Can Build A Better Aquaculture Industry Ourselves Published Date: 2009/3/19 0:40:00 Article ID : 6370 Version 1.00 By Alexandra Morton Opinion The website for Friends of Port Mouton shows a grim-faced Nova Scotia fisherman holding a fish farm protest sign. The caption reads, "Something's wrong when you have to fight like this just to keep your friggin' harbour." He's right. Something is very wrong, and my grizzled-faced fisherman neighbours are standing in this man's shoes a continent away. While government scoffs at the science, the fact is the wild salmon are vanishing on the extinction trajectory we predicted. As the wild salmon go, so we go. All the hype that fish farms benefit small coastal communities makes people from Port Mouton, N.S. to Echo Bay, B.C. angry. But today there is no place for fish "farms" under the Constitution of Canada. On Feb. 9, 2009, BC Supreme Court ruled: they are not "farms," they are a fishery, their provincial licences to operate are unconstitutional and he removed this industry from provincial hands. The fish farmers are not allowed to privatize ocean spaces, and they cannot own a school of fish in our ocean. Their pens are irrelevant because the same ocean flows through both sides of the nets. Marine Harvest has appealed the court ruling because their investors want the fish to be private property. The provincial government did not join Marine Harvest in this appeal. Ok, so let's take stock. The fish "farming" corporations may not own their fish, their licences are unconstitutional and will be invalid in 11 months, and the B.C. government seems fine with this. On the global front, their market is failing as Americans tighten their belts, and their share prices plummet due to a virus they appear to be accidentally infecting their own farms with down in Chile. This industry has built nothing. As their market decays they will pull anchor and leave. The Solution I live in a small town and I know we need jobs, but someone in government is going to have to stand up and recognize that this social experiment is not working. The Norwegian feedlot fishery is too mechanized, too damaging and too cheap. Their fish are not worth enough for them to deal with their issues. There has been a net loss in jobs, the price of wild salmon has been destroyed and the entire wild salmon fishery and the $1.5-billion tourism industry threatened. So what's the answer? Wild salmon cannot be moved, so remove the ones in pens. Offer incentives to Canadian fish farmers to build tanks on land where they can work on farming a range of fish species and rebuild a viable industry with infrastructure that will stay with the towns. Form councils made of local people willing to work hard to restore wild salmon, using the remarkably successful biology of wild salmon as the compass and instruct government to help, not hinder these people Apply the Fisheries Act fair and square to any aquaculture that remains in public waters. We got into this mess because no one read the road signs and now we are way out of bounds and deep into the danger zone. The final straw for me was the $5 million Pacific Salmon Forum tasked to respond to the plummeting wild Broughton salmon stocks. They did indeed confirm there is a relationship between fish farms, sea lice and declining wild salmon and what do they recommend? Leave farm salmon production at the level where all the damage to the lovely Broughton occurred. This is wrong. When another fishery in Canada is even suspected (never mind millions in studies) of harming a wild salmon population they face reductions. The PSF should take this industry back to 1994 levels where the wild salmon were surviving. Something is indeed very wrong when you have to fight this friggin' hard to do the obvious. I don't trust government or the industry to benefit the B.C. economy. Norwegian fish farmers take your feedlots and go home. Use your own coast as a litter box if you must, we can build a better aquaculture industry ourselves and have our wild salmon and our jobs, too. To sign the petition to apply the Fisheries Act to fish farms the way it is applied to fishermen please click on the link below......... pass it on Alexandra Morton http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cEkxX3p3MGFBbWNVVGNVU3lxQnBw Qmc6MA.. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VFB Mail" group. 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