History of Save our Skeena Salmon Campaign
A few years ago a new building started going up just off the highway, beside a small stream near the mouth of the Skeena River. The local paper said it was a hatchery to enhance the local wild stocks.
Rumours started about Kitkatla and fishfarms. Kitkatla is a small remote Tsimshian village on an island in the southern approaches to the Skeena River.
The BC government lifted the moratorium on fishfarms.
On the local docks and in cafes in Prince Rupert,the odd person started to ponder the huge size of the new hatchery for such a small stream.
A notice appeared in the paper listing the longitudes and latitudes of 7 proposed fishfarm sites. No map was included.
A few people with access to charts were shocked to see that the sites were right in the southern approaches to the Skeena River. The second largest commercial salmon river in Canada and recognized worldwide for its steelhead.
A few people started to sound the alarm bells, especially Des Nobels of the T Buck Suzuki Foundation (founded by a BC environmentalist gillnetter). Des along with Ericka Rolston of WWF, organized a forum on fishfarms in Prince Rupert. The WWF does not have a policy against fishfarms but in the interests of education about marine matters helped organize the forum. The industry, though invited, didn’t attend – the experts who did attend warned of the problems of fishfarms.
In fall 2003 the Prince Rupert Environmental Society (formed in 1990 to help make a recycling depot a reality) was looking for a new focus. Several members spoke of the overwhelming evidence that when open net salmon farms are introduced near wild salmon migration routes, wild salmon stocks are severely impacted. The members concern for local wild salmon determined them to try and protect them from salmon farms in the approaches to the Skeena River. We call our campaign Save our Skeena Salmon.
For over two years now, PRES has focused all its efforts on this issue. Our membership has grown and become more diversified. Our group includes environmentalists, charter boat operators, commercial fisherman, First Nations, right wing, left wing, old and young.
Some of our Projects
- Researching the issue
- Teaching each other
- Letter writing to the local paper
- We produced and distributed a map of proposed sites, so people could see they were right in the Skeena River wild salmon migration routes and rearing habitat.
- We did a survey finding 71% of decided people in Prince Rupert and outlying villages say no to fishfarms (with a 5% margin of error 19 times out of 20) and released the results.
- Twyla Roscovich joined our group and we helped her produce a film on the issue "Call from a Coast"
- We showed the film to about 150 just prior to the federal election
- These efforts helped make fishfarms a federal election issue in 2004. We elected a local member of parliament, Nathan cullen NDP, who speaks out against fishfarm expansion.
November 2004, 350 people out to see the film "Call from the Coast" in Prince Rupert. The next day PRES' presentation on salmon farms to the Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District Board resulted in their motion to ask the provincial and federal governments to stop the expansion of fishfarms into the north coast.
www.saveourskeenasalmon.org website was launched in spring 2005
We spoke to and delivered info to all political parties and spurred on by a positive reception only by the local NDpers, we sent out an info package including the map, survey and DVD to influential NDPers all over BC asking them to promise a moratorium (Carole James announced the NDP pro moratorium position just prior to the election).
We worked hard to help make the FOWS Salmon Summit a huge success
Fishfarms were a major issue in the summer 2005 BC election in this region and two pro moratorium NDP MLAs were elected and have joined our fight.
Redesigned our map to show the upriver Skeena communities and tributaries and using it to let people inland know about the threat to their precious salmon and steelhead.
Organized our supporter list and used it for an email campaign to stop the issuing of the Strouts Point license.
Keeping abreast of the most recent science and updating our website with new photos and pages.
Our members are all volunteers and we keep getting great new members after our events and now have an even stronger core of people who are determined to keep the Skeena fishfarm free.
Our main goal now is to spread the word and get more declarations signed.
We are working on distributing the video far and wide-it will have its first major TV airing Jan 28th 2006
In the upcoming federal election we want to let people know that the federal Liberals are pro fishfarm and locally we want to encourage people to consider the fishfarm issue and the importance of electing an MP who will speak for us and continue to work to protect our wild salmon.
|
Download Movie
