Closed-pen farming
Impenetrable barrier needed to keep wild stocks safe and healthy, provincial panel says
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, May 17, 2007
CREDIT:
Fish farm in B.C.
British Columbia's salmon farming industry needs profound, fundamental changes that reflect the need to protect native Pacific salmon, says a controversial new report presented to the provincial government on Wednesday.
The legislature's sustainable aquaculture committee says the risk of "serious or irreversible harm" to wild salmon, particularly if they are hit with sea lice infestations in the vicinity of fish farms, makes it urgent for government to force the industry to overhaul its farming practices.
In particular, the report recommends a "rapid, phased transition" away from conventional open-pen sea farming to closed containment pens that provide an impenetrable biological barrier between wild and farmed salmon.
The report was developed over 18 months by an NDP-led committee that calls on B.C., the federal government and the aquaculture industry to finance and conduct a full-scale closed containment project.
The committee also recommends that within five years, all B.C. salmon farms on the Pacific coast switch to closed systems.
That aspect of the report, which would make B.C. the first and only jurisdiction in the world to adopt the technology, prompted all four Liberal members of the committee to vote against the report in a meeting held Wednesday morning.
However, the report was formally approved because all five NDP members of the committee, including chair Robin Austin (NDP-Skeena), voted in favour of it.
Salmon farmers don't like the closed pens because they cost more to operate than passive open net pens, and studies so far have shown that the fish are smaller at maturity.
The committee studied other alternatives, such as land-based salmon farming, but said that method is not practical for commercial-sized operations.
The report says there is "no consensus" in the scientific community about the degree of potential harm that fish farms could cause wild salmon.
But it adds that there is a "preponderance of evidence" that makes it necessary to "act immediately."
"We cannot wait for total consensus," says the report. "We are the guardians and trustees of the environment and therefore cannot place at risk our wild salmon population nor the overall marine environment, both of which are still the envy of the world."
The report also calls on the province to return to local communities the right to approve or reject siting of new fish farms and to repeal sections of the government's right to farm legislation that do not allow local governments to block approval of new farms.
In addition, the report calls for a system of fallowing, or short-term farm closures, in order to eliminate active salmon farming operations from the vicinity of migratory routes for young salmon.
The report says a moratorium on new fish farm licences should continue until the transition to closed-pen systems is complete, and a permanent moratorium on industry expansion should be imposed on the north coast.
It also urges government to abandon the notion that the industry can be self-policing and instead, empower its own investigative staff to "conduct random checks without any notice to any fish farm operators."
There are 130 licensed salmon farms in B.C., 60 to 80 of which are active at any given time, according to the report.
ssimpson@png.canwest.com- - -
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© The Vancouver Sun 2007
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Topic: Closed-pen fish farming (Read 9018 times)