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Displaying items by tag: Salmon
The Norwegian salmon farming industry got a lesson in the old adage, "be careful what you wish for" this week when it learned of industry critic Don Staniford's next job. The British-born, globe-trotting salmon activist announced on his blog yesterday that following his scheduled deportation from Canada later this month he will be heading to Norway to work with that country's leading environmentalist bad boy, Kurt Oddekalv, head of the Green Warriors of Norway. The industry may have got its wish - seeing the last of Staniford in BC - but it's turning out to be a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire.
The mystery of the disappearing wild salmon may be closer to being solved due to the reconvened Cohen Commission and the extraordinary three days of hearings held in December, 2011. As earlier testimony revealed, many environmental factors affect the survival of wild salmon but imported diseases from the aquaculture industry may be the largest single cause of their decline...Evidence now confirms that government policy supports the salmon farming industry, and that the industry has been willing to exploit this advantage to win regulatory concessions for its economic gain - in the words of one Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) official, the industry seemed "to dictate" policy.
A little-known proposed gravel mine at McNab Creek in Howe Sound could soon be digging tens of millions of tonnes of gravel out of sensitive salmon and wildlife habitat, which has regional politicians and citizens of the Sunshine Coast sounding alarms. Several regional directors and councilors have recently stepped forward with concerns about the lack of local government involvement in the environmental assessment process currently being carried out under the federal Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. A local citizens' group concerned about environmental and community impacts is calling on the public to comment on the project by the end of the week, when the first comment phase closes.
The source of the infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAv) now being found in BC's wild salmon is almost certainly from imported Atlantic salmon eggs, the international trade that has provided coastal salmon farms with most of their stock. The salmon farming industry, of course, is still denying that ISAv is here, although evidence given at the Cohen Commission's extraordinary three days of hearings on December 15th, 16th and 19th essentially obliterates that defence...Documents presented at the Cohen Commission suggest that the arrival of ISAv coincides with the early importation of Atlantic salmon eggs to West Coast salmon farms.
If money talks, then the geyser of financial support that has sprung in the past few days for salmon activist Don Staniford's legal defence speaks volumes. Staniford is being sued by the world's second largest farmed salmon producer, Oslo-based Cermaq, for defamation. The trial, expected to run 20 days, begins today at the BC Supreme Court in Vancouver. The company, whose biggest shareholder is the Norwegian Government, may have been banking on Staniford submitting to its demands out of court - but any chance of that happening disappeared over the past weekend when the activist raised over $20,000 in public donations for his legal battle.
The credibility of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has been compromised by its conflicting mandates of managing wild salmon and promoting salmon farming. Now we discover that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has its own conflicting mandates of suppressing pathogens while enhancing marketing opportunities for fish products. Consequently, when a viral disease is reported and the commercial value of fish is threatened, the CFIA assumes a defensive position by questioning the findings of the testing labs, by re-testing the degraded samples of infected fish with its notoriously inaccurate technology, and then recording "inconclusive" results as "negative".
Rafe gives Christy some advice - like keep charging the HST, ignore public and First Nations anger over fish farms, private power, pipelines and tankers: "I have good news for our premier. If what I’m about to say is wrong, you have nothing to worry about. You see, Premier, I have this radical notion that the mood of the voter has changed – you evidently don’t, making it obvious (sorry to talk as if you are a slow learner) that if you just paddle along, down the happy old stream, why the voters, so afraid of the bad old NDP, will put you right back in government in 2013."
Read this story from The Canadian Press on anti-salmon farm activist Don Staniford's legal battle with Norwegian Government-owned Cermaq, which operates in BC as Mainstream Canada. (Jan. 7, 2011)
His outspoken criticism has earned him an appearance at the Supreme Court of B.C. on Jan. 16 where he must defend himself against allegations from Mainstream Canada, the province's second largest salmon farming company, that he defamed the organization.
The case could cost him $125,000 if he loses.
The defamation case is the second Staniford has faced in the province since 2005 and the third major legal fight of his 18-year international campaigning career.
"It's definitely a stressful situation," said Staniford, who is a native of Merseyside, England, near Liverpool.
"It's obviously gearing up for a fight. It's not a physical fight but it's a mental fight."
According to court documents, the case focuses on anti-salmon farming campaigns Staniford initiated on or about Jan. 31, 2011.
In those documents, Mainstream Canada's lawyer David Wotherspoon alleges Staniford disseminated and published defamatory and false statements about the company under three titles: "The Salmon Farming Kills Campaign", the "Silent Spring of the Sea," and "Smoke on the Water, Cancer on the Coast."
Read more: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/fierce-fish-farm-opponent-remains-defiant-face-b-100013817.html
Read this op-ed in The Vancouver Sun by Dr. Craig Orr and Stan Proboszcz of Watershed Watch, which provides a compelling summary in the wake of the Cohen Commission of the political dynamics threatening Fraser River sockeye. (Dec 27, 2011)
Sockeye are plagued by a lack of food, lax pollution standards, ineffective habitat protection efforts, archaic water laws, harmful hydro impacts, unjustified riverbed mining, a “modernized” Fisheries Act, illegal fishing, subpar catch monitoring, and debilitating climate change. Unlucky Oncorhynchus nerka must also swim a gauntlet of non-selective nets, predators, toxic algae blooms, and pathogen-bearing fish farms — all for an increasingly slim chance to spawn and die.
If these stresses weren’t troubling enough, the federal review of Fraser sockeye woes recently reopened to testimony about positive tests for the infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAv) in wild and farmed salmon. Indeed, despite vigorous government assurances to the contrary, compelling evidence suggests this virus has been here for some time. Governments’ reaction to the news — and to leaks that they had known of a possible virus for nearly a decade — prompts one to fear that wild salmon ranked disturbingly low on their list of priorities.
Reaction to reports of a virus associated with salmon farms predictably meant strident denial among Canada’s regulators, followed by something more insidious. Governments seemed less inclined to act on disease and public concerns, and more intent on firing back at the scientists who reported ISAv positives. Judge Bruce Cohen was told scientists felt “intimidated,” “attacked,” and “alienated.” Samples were seized, methods publicly questioned, labs audited. Fisheries ministers unleashed media releases chastising highly accredited academics for “reckless behaviour” and “unsound science.”
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/Fraser%20sockeye%20being%20hung%20politicians/5916281/story.html?mid=56534
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