From The Globe & Mail - April 5, 2011

by Mark Hume

An unguarded note a Department of Fisheries and Oceans manager wrote to himself has given a judicial inquiry a glimpse into the frustrations and fears felt by frontline staff fighting to save salmon habitat in British Columbia.

The brief, one-page document written by Jason Hwang, a manager for DFO’s Habitat and Enhancement Branch in the Kamloops area, was entered as evidence at the Cohen commission on Tuesday by Judah Harrison, a lawyer representing a coalition of conservation groups.

Mr. Harrison, who obtained the document through disclosure, described it as “a sort of unguarded critique” of DFO’s struggles to protect habitat.

“Well, I definitely agree it’s unguarded,” said Mr. Hwang, who was one of three DFO witnesses testifying on habitat issues. “I believe I wrote that for myself for some upcoming planning meeting. . . .trying to reflect on some key things we were grappling with.”

Mr. Hwang said the note is a few years old, but in response to questions from Mr. Harrison, he agreed things haven’t changed.

“Huge amount of development in Thompson, Okanagan, Nicola, Shuswap. We can’t keep up. Referral backlog is up to 4 months,” wrote Mr. Hwang, whose department is responsible for ensuring salmon habitat is not degraded by logging, mining, agriculture, urban growth and other activities. “We are not able to pursue smaller occurrences that in the past we have pursued and prosecuted.”

Earlier in the week, the commission heard that DFO is not meeting its key policy goal of ensuring that developments do not cause a net loss of fish habitat. The commission, which is examining the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River, also heard DFO’s effectiveness was hampered by a new habitat management policy (known as the Environmental Process Modernization Plan, or EPMP), which staff in B.C. resisted because it was “lowering the bar” on environmental protection.

“EPMP and staff reductions have reduced our ability to engage with proponents. . .we don’t have a handle on what is actually going on,” Mr. Hwang stated in his note.

“We have no viable referral system. This is killing us,” he stated.

“We are without question not attaining no net loss. . .Our staff are very dis-illusioned [sic] that the department is not doing more to address this.

“The relationship between province and DFO is in a state of disfunction [sic]. We don’t coordinate on referrals in any consistent way, and there is no guidance or leadership from Vancouver-Victoria on this.”

Mr. Hwang also wrote DFO was not keeping up with the increased logging authorized by the province in response to the mountain pine-beetle epidemic, which has swept through much of the B.C. Interior, killing huge stands of timber.

“We are totally disengaged from operational forestry. Rates of cut have increased massively in response to MPB. We don’t have a handle on what is going on, and are not providing any meaningful guidance on what we would like to see for fish,” wrote Mr. Hwang.

The frank assessment of DFO’s failings contrasted with the more cautious evaluations given in direct testimony by Mr. Hwang, and his co-witnesses, Patrice LeBlanc, director of habitat policies for DFO in Ottawa, and Rebecca Reid, a regional director in the Pacific.

They portrayed DFO as doing a good job despite the challenges of budget restrictions and staffing cuts.

Dr. Craig Orr, who was observing proceedings as executive director of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society, said he was dismayed by the testimony.

“The evidence supports the widely held belief that government is more concerned with streamlining harmful industrial development and bolstering flagging public confidence than in protecting critical salmon habitat,” he said.

Read original article