Once I stopped recording our interview for the Partners of Commercial Fisherman podcast, Melissa Collier of West Coast Wild Scallops really went off. As she listed threatening regulations, the research and work of fishermen to save local fisheries, and the rejection of the Canadian Government for their due diligence, I opened the Voice Memo app on my phone and hit record to capture it all.
Melissa and her husband, fisherman Joel Collier, run a small family operation from Courtney and Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada. A few years ago, they expanded their simple fishing business to include wholesale. However, Melissa feels “wholesale” speaks louder than what she, her husband, and two crew members do regularly.
“I think of it more as a commercial fisherman marketing and selling his catch to a variety of end markets,” Collier said. WC Wild Scallops sells locally, directly to the public and small seafood markets and retailers, a community-supported fishery, and food distribution companies.” On top of business operations while raising two kids is advocacy, an obligatory measure that has become an identity.
There’s real fear on the northeast part of Vancouver Island that commercial fishing may no longer exist due to encroaching MPAs or Marine Protected Areas on fishing grounds, at least in a way that can support the Collier family and many others who’ve made this industry a career.
“Here on the B.C. coast, we have many different conservation areas,” Collier said. She mentions sponge reef areas where bottom contact fishing is restricted and a rockfish conservation area where fishing is prohibited. But MPAs the Canadian government threatens to implement are no-fish zones of the entire northern fleet fishing grounds.
“We got this map with patches all over the place, and the majority of these patches were primary fishing zones,” Collier said. “Then they came out with a second (proposal); there were management measures. They actually said each area had a specific type of conservation they were aiming for, and it still really drastically impacts the fishing industry.” The following proposal came, but this time, the government took the management measures out.
“We had no idea what they were trying to protect or what was going to be allowed, what’s not going to be allowed. And that’s kind of where we’re sitting right now,” Collier said.
In response to the MPAs, fishing communities formed a group called the Marine Planning Team, with representations from several associations. For two years, the team traveled up and down the coast, meeting with every fish community and fishing method.
“The prawn fishermen got into a room and said, ‘Okay, what areas can we give up and what areas would be completely crashed if we had to get rid of?” Collier said it was an “arduous task,” she explained, but a means to compromise and work with the government to find common ground.
The Marine Planning Team created maps “because originally our government right away said if someone came up with an alternative plan, they would entertain it.” According to Collier, The team devised an alternate plan that met or exceeded the conservation that the government outlined. They had a, reportedly, a significant reduction in impact. “The fishing fleet would still be there, there would still be an impact, but it wouldn’t kill us. It wouldn’t totally destroy our industry,” Collier said. The government has yet to acknowledge their efforts. “They haven’t taken any of the recommendations by the Marine Planning Team, and they just keep plowing forward.”
Startling news came from the IMPAC5 conference (Fifth International Marine Protected Areas Congress) in Vancouver, Canada, this year when the government officially endorsed the marine protection network plan and announced an initial closure. “One of the areas they closed is part of an area that we fish, and we had to completely adjust our fishing in accordance with that because we can’t fish in the zone anymore,” Collier said.
Yet, Collier and other families persist and attend public engagement meetings to keep their finger on the pulse. More discouraging news arose when information sheets of marine protected areas were passed around, citing unfactual data, which included recreational fishing periods and the economic impact of the commercial fishing community.