Charting a Path to Sustainable Indigenous-led Seafood Partnerships
THE ISSUE:
In February 2023, the former fisheries minister Joyce Murray said the federal government would not renew licences for 15 open-net Atlantic salmon farms around B.C.'s Discovery Islands near Campbell River on Vancouver Island. This move was part of a larger plan, announced in 2020, to transition away from open-net farming. Some coastal Indigenous communities say at issue are considerations of rights, title, consultation, and reconciliation. They are worried that such a decision will set a precedent, enabling sweeping decisions about other types of aquaculture without their input. And then there are the immediate economic implications: With much of the wild salmon fishery closed for the foreseeable future, some communities rely heavily on the economic benefits, including hundreds of jobs, derived from their involvement in salmon farming.
The history of the sector, the implications of the decision, and future considerations were discussed during an IPSS 2023 panel by Dallas Smith, President, Na̲nwak̲olas Council, Chief Chris Roberts, We Wai Kum First Nation, Isaiah Robinson, Councillor, Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation, and David Kiemele, Managing Director, Cermaq Canada.
Chief Chris Roberts, Dallas Smith, Dave Stover and Isaiah Robinson at the 2023 Indigenous Partnerships Success Showcase.
Isaiah Robinson, Councillor of the Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation, says his Nation’s involvement with the commercial salmon industry began 100 years ago, when the fish packing company J.H. Todd and Sons came to their community. “They provided wealth to a community in the middle of the coast. That really made our people. They had comfort; J.H. Todd and Sons really provided that.”
That comfort continued for decades, until declining wild salmon stocks and market forces eventually led to companies pulling out from the area through the 1980s and 1990s.
“[The companies] pulled out and we had nothing,” says Robinson. “We had nothing to rely on, middle of nowhere. At that time, we had a high percentage of employment—and then it dropped to five percent. We had poverty, we had suicides, we had alcoholism.
“Our leaders said, ‘Enough is enough. We need a one bread winner for every household. How can we make that possible?’”
Robinson says that after some research and development, his community decided to try their hand at salmon farming; their early attempts were far from successful. “There were some accidents. We lost a bunch of fish. And we're like, ‘Oh God, how are we going to do this?’ And we decided to push and develop industry partners. And so, 25 years later, we are pioneers in this industry when it comes to First Nations. We signed the first agreements with this industry, period. We've come so far. We have a 99 percent employment rate. We haven't had a suicide story in 18 years.”
Along with their commercial success in aquaculture, the Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation on the central coast in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest, is known for its achievements in environmental conservation and in science.
“Fifty-one percent of our territories protected,” says Robinson. “We are the most progressive Nation in that sense. We do our own science too. Science is key to everything we do in Kitasoo. And when it comes to the salmon farms, since we've had them, we've done over 20 years with the science.”
Much of the push to close open-net salmon farming on BC’s coast comes from various groups saying that the industry is detrimental to wild salmon stocks. In Robinson’s opinion, it’s not salmon farming that’s caused the decline in those stocks, but rather a combination of other factors – among them overfishing, habitat destruction, and climate change.
“We've done science for so long. There's no impacts. Just to be frank. Up and down the coast, 80 kilometers from our community, there are no farms, but the decline is there.”
Dallas Smith, President, Na̲nwak̲olas Council, says over the years he’s witnessed many outside groups trying to control what happens within traditional First Nations’ territories, and for him, the issue of salmon farming is intrinsically tied to Nations being able to assert their rights and have control over their own economic development. Smith is President of the Na̲nwak̲olas Council, which comprises six member Nations on north Vancouver Island and the mainland coast: Mamalilikulla First Nation; Tlowitsis Nation; Da'naxda'xw Awaetlatla Nation; Wei Wai Kum Nation; We Wai Kai Nation; and K'ómoks Nation.
“We're watching this happen in our waters for a long time now. For a long time, we watched it. These international conglomerates came in and started getting tenures in our territory. And as we started getting better control over tenure management, we started to have dialogues because the government of British Columbia was granting these tenures without any input from our communities.”
He says over the last several years there’s been a lot of progress. “From the industry there's a lot more olive branch reaching, which grows into dialogue, which grows into partnerships.
“And now we're in a position where we're working those issues out, where there's communities who want these opportunities in their territory. And there's communities who don't. I'm very proud to see the communities that don't want things in their territory have taken steps to see that not happen anymore. But at the same time, the communities that want to work towards something need to have the ability to do that.
“We're talking about the ability of First Nations to be able to build their foundations to go forward on how they want to see things happening in their communities.”
Drawing Change Illustration by Erica Bota.
Chief Chris Roberts is from We Wai Kum (Campbell River) First Nation, which is directly impacted by the federal government’s decision to not renew salmon farm licences around B.C.'s Discovery Islands. In March 2023, his Nation (also referred to as Laich-kwil-tach Nation), along with the We Wai Kai Nation (Cape Mudge Indian Band) applied for judicial review of the federal government's decision. The Nations had submitted a detailed proposal about a staged reintroduction of fish farming; the lawsuit stated by ignoring the proposal, the fisheries minister had “unjustifiably excluded the Laich-kwil-tach from the management of their own territories.”
When it came to salmon farming, says Roberts, for a long time it had simply been “taken for granted, (because) it existed in our territory without any consent, no consultation.”
In more recent years, the Nation had come to agreements with industry, including Cermaq. Three of the fish farm licenses not renewed in the Discovery Islands belonged to Cermaq.
“Where we're at now with industry, we have agreements,” says Roberts. “I wouldn't say we have a partnership. We don't have the longstanding history. But we wanted to give it a chance to determine for ourselves if there was a way in which we can come to terms and grips with this operation, that the risks could be understood by us, and if those could be managed mitigated or eliminated.
“I believe we put something forward [to government] that was practical, pragmatic, and it's predicated on recognition of our right to make a decision in our self-determination in our territory with processes that are built by us and led by us, and working in collaboration with research agencies, academia, government, and industry.”
David Kiemele of Cermaq says that the way the industry conducted itself in the past, in regard to First Nations, was not always right, but there has been a transition in recent years.
“I'm a farmer. I grow salmon in the ocean, and I do that only because I have partnerships or agreements with Nations where our farms are located. I've said this many a time, that I want to operate where I'm welcomed, and I don't want to operate where I'm not. I'm lucky I work for a business, Cermaq, we're owned by Mitsubishi—they understand that if we're to operate on this coast in this country, then this is the way it's going to be. And ironically, in the relationships (with First Nations) is the security and stability that I will never get from any other form of government.”
Smith notes that many of the agreements that First Nations have been developing with industry include measures to help restore wild salmon populations. His own Nation has had a partnership with Grieg Seafood for some years, and that relationship continues to evolve.
“And now for the next stage of our transition, we're asking them to help us with the technical side of salmon restoration within our territories. We're working with the forest companies in our territories to work on some of those streams that have been damaged because of poor forest practices. But why wouldn't we work with a company that grows fish for a living to help us replenish our wild stocks?”
He says they are working on the cryogenic freezing of species Indigenous to their watersheds “so we make sure that when we replenish our watersheds, they're being replenished with the fish that have been there, that have sustained our people for 14,000 years. But there's a controversy in that because there's this smoking gun effect that the aquaculture industry wears.
“(The opponents of it) talk about this like it's blood diamonds sometimes. This is a sustainable seafood product that is in high demand, is sold in stores. I mean, I would rather white people eat farm fish and leave the wild for us while we're replenishing it. That's one of the reasons why we support the development of farm fish is so it can feed the people, and we can take the pressure off the wild stocks while we regenerate them and do that through partnerships.”
Among those calling for an end to open-net farming of Atlantic salmon are conservation groups as well as more than 100 First Nations.
Smith says he’s seen activists trying to discredit Chief Roberts and his community because of their position on salmon farming.
“It is a challenge,” says Roberts. “It's disheartening. It makes hard work even that much more difficult. Why we set out to do this was to seek to understand and to put ourselves in the position to be respected by our neighboring Nations, by other governments and NGOs, as a decision maker in this era of reconciliation, economic reconciliation, and requiring consent.”
He says the process of getting consent is “through a fair and transparent process that's led by indigenous Nations within their territory. And it's predicated on that respect for our sovereignty among each other as Nations. That is critical.”
From what Roberts has seen, other Nations’ engagement in other industries is not receiving the same kind of scrutiny as his Nation’s involvement in aquaculture.
Smith agrees: “We trust that when a Nation develops an LNG project or an energy project, that they're going to take the steps that are necessary to protect their rights and title and protect their territories from the impacts of said development. But for some reason, this sector and industry doesn't have that privilege.”
Roberts says he looks forward to the next phase, “which I suspect is going to be more Nation-to-Nation engagement, to understand the concerns that we have. To have it out and to convince me and change my mind of things that I might not understand. But at the end of the day, we have to respect each other's autonomy and what decisions we're going to make.”
“We kind of got pretty focused on the open net Atlantic salmon farming issue, but in my community the dialogue is changing to sustainable seafood production, aquaculture in all of its forms. And what role do we see that playing? And we want to be the ones leading that charge and I think it just can't get so polarized because it just limits innovation.”
Smith also looks forward to “having those hard discussions with the people who have concerns about what I'm doing in my territories.
“But we're going to continue to protect what's important, sustainably develop what we can for the best interest of our communities. And we're not going stop until the human wellbeing of our communities comes equal to that of the Canadian average. The acceptability of us to suffer and go without because of the political whims of others, those days are over.
“And it's not just about aquaculture. We're going to manage our territory across the board in an ecosystem-based managed approach. And we're going to look at all the issues that we face, and we're going to continue to do that, and we're going to continue to build partnerships that benefit not only our communities, but British Columbians and Canadians.”
“The fact that Nations are supportive of sustainable seafood production in their territories does not mean for one minute that they are against wild salmon and their resurrection.”
Sponsored by Coalition of First Nations for Finfish Stewardship.