With commercial herring roe fisheries on B.C.’s central coast set to reopen at any moment, tension is rising between First Nations and the government, while fishermen remain caught in the middle.
In Bella Bella, the Heiltsuk Nation is preparing to block any attempts to catch herring by 20 commercial fishing vessels currently anchored in Shearwater, where they wait for fish to begin spawning.
The central coast has been closed to commercial herring fisheries since 2006, when the stock fell below levels acceptable to the government. While officials from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada claim herring levels have stabilized, the Heiltsuk maintain that levels are still too low. If commercial fishing returns in the area, the nation fears the entire stock could collapse.
“We have a responsibility to protect our herring stocks,” said Heiltsuk chief councillor Marilyn Slett. When the fisheries open, some 40 boats with 90 Heiltsuk onboard will take to the water to disrupt the fishing, she vowed, adding that could happen any time now.
Twenty RCMP officers have descended on Denny Island close to Bella Bella to ensure no violence erupts. Slett said the added presence of law enforcement is welcome, as everyone’s safety during a potential blockade is paramount.
Three nations move to block openings
The Heiltsuk have fought the reopening since December 2013, when Fisheries Minister Gail Shea announced her decision to reopen central coast operations, along with those on the west coast of Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii. All three areas have been closed for years, after herring levels dropped below the 25 per cent cut-off where commercial fishing is considered no longer sustainable.
The central coast is the last region slated for fisheries reopening. The Nuu-chah-nulth on the west coast of Vancouver Island successfully blocked the minister’s decision by obtaining a federal court injunction in late February, and on March 17 the Haida Nation reached an agreement with industry in which both parties would stop fishing in 2014.
None of these options has worked for the Heiltsuk, said Slett, so they now have no choice but to physically block the reopening.
At the heart of the conflict is DFO’s assessment of the herring stock. All three First Nations say it is wrong, but the department and Minister Shea remain adamant the assessment is “backed by solid fisheries science,” as one ministry official told The Tyee.
Slett and her researchers at the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department disagree.
Their concern is backed by an internal DFO document which shows Minister Shea’s decision to reopen the fisheries went against her own scientists’ advice. They recommended the minister maintain closures in all three areas.
Slett described this as gross mismanagement of the government’s duty to manage its fisheries. “It’s not acceptable,” she said.
Proposed harvest ‘sustainable’: industry
That’s not how Greg Thomas, chairman of the Herring Industry Advisory Board, a group of herring fishermen and processor representatives, sees it. He said DFO’s assessment indicates that herring stocks have been rebuilding and that there’s no reason to be concerned about collapses.
A condition for the reopening was that commercial fishermen be allowed a conservative 10 per cent harvest rate. On the central coast, that amounts to 750 tonnes of herring, much less than the 1,100 tonnes allocated to First Nations, Thomas said.
“There’s a significant opportunity for commercial fisheries here,” he said, questioning why the Heiltsuk oppose commercial fishery activity while they plan to proceed with their own fisheries.
Slett said that the First Nations’ traditional spawn-on-kelp fishery is much less invasive to the herring. Trees are lowered into open ponds, where captured herring then spawn on the trees. After a few weeks, the trees are raised up and the roe collected — without killing the herring, she said — as opposed to commercial fishing, where the roe is cut out of the herring and the carcasses processed for other purposes.
Thomas doesn’t buy that comparison. He said no matter how the roe is removed, it still removes fish from the fishery. While commercial fishing does kill off all captured fish, spawn-on-kelp operations kill fish as well, he said, adding that in this case it has all been allocated for by DFO. “It’s well within the bounds of sustainable fishing.”
The Tyee, 2014