by Miriam Trevis
The Record
December 15, 2004
The delegation of DFO officials who attended the Dec. 9 Gold River Council meeting came as a result of prolonged efforts on the part of council and members of the Nootka Sound Watershed Society.
The trio of Brian Pearse, Bruce Adkins and Dave Innell are all senior bureaucrats in the Salmon Enhancement Branch of the DFO.
For the past several months, invitations have been extended to the DFO to come to either a Watershed Society meeting or a Council meeting, or both, to give an explanation of the cutbacks being imposed at the Conuma Hatchery. These cutbacks will ultimately impact the number of fish returning to Nootka Sound but, as yet, no firm figures have been given as to exactly what the impact will be and when it will be felt.
The nearest anyone has come to achieving some modicum of success is a result of these invitations is when a DFO representative attended a recent Watershed meeting to present three options to the society's members. All three options included cutbacks to Hatchery production and all included a complete elimination of coho broodstock this year at the Hatchery.
None of the three options were acceptable to the society's members and it became apparent throughout the course of the DFO presentation that option two had already been selected and that public input was not truly being requested. Since none of the options were accepted, the DFO representative reported that there was no public input on the issue.
Now that the fishing season is over and it is too late to reverse decisions that have already been made, the DFO decided to put in an appearance at the council meeting.
When Councillor Jim Mitchell, President of the Gold River Streamkeepers Society, asked what the plan was for the Conuma Hatchery, he was advised the "there is no plan, there is just a strategy."
Over the past few years, $4 million has been cut from the Salmon Enhancement Programme. There appears to have been no effort on the part of the Pacific Region Management of DFO to make any attempts to have this funding reinstated, either in part or totally. Last year the budget for the Conuma Hatchery was approximately $800,000. No figures have been released, as yet, as to what the new budget will be.
There are more than 100 volunteers just in Gold River area alone who assist with habitat restoration, education, and public awareness. Throughout the province, there are 40,000 volunteers and yet when voluntary help has been offered to assist at the Hatchery, no effort has been made by DFO to even respond to the offer, let alone accept it. Nootka Sound Watershed Society is a broad based, all-inclusive group. Its members are only too aware of the major cutbacks being made at the Hatchery, but the Society cannot as yet register its disapproval since it will not be advised what cutbacks are until the decision has been implemented.
The primary target of the Society at this time is to have full recognition by DFO as being the local body most concerned with salmon enhancement and to have the opportunity to have proper public input on the decisions being made which affect the area. All too frequently the public is made aware of the need for input within hours of the deadline for such input.
A resolution, which was forwarded by the VIllage of Gold River, has just been passed by the Regional District of Comox-Strathcona. The resolution, addressed to Prime Minister Paul Martin, requests no further cuts can be made to funding or production "without public consultation or proper public disclosure prior to these cuts to funding and production of salmon fry release."
The resolution goes on to request maintenance of "the current 25 million dollar funding level with a commitment to increasing future funding and to stop any funding or production cuts to the Salmon Enhancement Programme." It concludes by requesting that "the Prime Minister of Canada direct the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada to include no substantive changes to the Salmon Enhancement Programme funding or production without a thorough and rigorous consultation process with local government, interest groups and all fisheries stakeholders."
While, according to Councillor Mitchell, some headway was made at the Dec. 6 meeting, there is still a long way to go before full recognition of the importance of the Hatchery in Nootka Sound is given by the Department of Oceans and Fisheries.
More than $12 million
per annum is generated by the sports fishery in Nootka Sound. It is becoming
a more important asset to these communities each year. Every effort should
be made by the residents of Nootka Sound to support the important work
being undertaken by the Nootka Sound Watershed Society and its members.
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