The backing of a land-based salmon farm in Japan by a global company with ties to ocean fish farms in British Columbia has Indigenous and conservation groups calling on the federal government to accelerate its transition away from open-net farms.
The international tide in aquaculture is shifting toward land-based salmon farms, and the sooner Canada gets on board the better for the protection of threatened wild salmon and the future of aquaculture in B.C., say representatives of the 120-member B.C. First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance and non-profit group Wild Salmon Forever/Wild First.
“Canada really has to decide at this point if it wants wild Pacific salmon or if it wants this dirty, harmful industry. It can’t have both,” Tony Allard, founder of Wild Salmon Forever/Wild First, said in an interview. “That’s how I see it. It’s hard to talk your way out of it.”
Open-net fish farms off B.C.’s coast are a flashpoint, with environmental groups and some Indigenous nations saying the farms transfer disease to wild salmon, while the industry and some local politicians say thousands of jobs are threatened if operations are phased out.
Earlier this month, federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray announced plans to extend a consultation period for a transition plan to shift away from open-net salmon farms in B.C. by 2025.
Murray announced last February the government would not renew licences for 15 open-net Atlantic salmon farms around B.C.’s Discovery Islands.
This month, she said consultations for 79 other open-net farms will now continue through the summer, with a transition plan decision coming at an unannounced date.
“They must also realize that this is where the industry’s going,” Bob Chamberlin, First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance spokesman, said in an interview. “No one logs like they used to. No one mines like they used to. Everything evolves and it’s time for this industry to do the same.”
He said when he visited Norway more than a decade ago, salmon farm industry officials there said they operate open-net fish farms in B.C. because they are permitted by the government.
“That was the last time I went to Norway to speak to them,” he said. “I realized that the fight was at home.”
Chamberlin said he’s now more convinced than ever about having salmon farms removed from B.C. waters after learning about the land-based project near Tokyo being built with financial backing from the Norwegian company, Grieg Group, which has investment ties to Grieg Seafood of Campbell River.
Grieg Seafood operates a fish hatchery, 22 ocean salmon farms and employs about 200 people in B.C.
Amy Jonsson, Grieg Seafood communications director, said in a statement that Grieg Seafood of Campbell River did not invest in the Norwegian-based Proximar Seafood land-based salmon farm project in Japan.