More talk about salmon farm moratorium in Northern British Columbia
The small First Nation community of Kitkatla (Gitxaala Nation) is located within a 20-minute trip by float plane South-West of Prince Rupert on the North Coast of British Columbia. Unemployment typically runs at some 85 per cent. Most jobs are related to government services. Like so many other coastal communities in B.C., Kitkatla is suffering from a downturn in the fishing and logging industries.
In December 2003 I went to Kitkatla to start a training program for a dozen students that wanted to become fish farm technicians. Eight months later they graduated with flying colours. One of them was a former Band Chief. A second course was held the following year, and soon there were 25 graduates ready to go to work.
An agreement had been worked out with Pan Fish Canada, which at that time had applied for licences for salmon farms in the vicinity of the village. Two licences were eventually granted, but the company claimed that it needed a third licence in order to be able to operate in an economically and environmentally sustainable fashion in this remote location of the coast. The agreement included the building of a hatchery and a processing plant in Kitkatla, providing some 137 full time jobs in the process.
But the approval of the third licence dragged out, and a massive campaign by environmental groups (ENGO's) was initiated around the whole Nort Coast of B.C., accusing salmon farms around Vancouver Island of killing wild salmon with sea lice shed from the farms there. Particular effort was made to scare the members of the Kitkatla Band into believing that their environment would be destroyed or permanently damaged if salmon farms were to be established near their village. A recent report by an independent fisheries biologist hired by the provincially-appointed B.C. Pacific Salmon Forum said that it is too soon to say if farmed fish are depleting wild salmon runs.
Some of the 25 native graduates travelled to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island and got employment with Pan Fish's farms there, but all would have preferred to work closer to their homes. The local member of the provincial government, which represents the opposition New Democratic Party, chaired a government committee that last year called for a moratorium on new farms in northern waters. He told BC Local News that recently Kitkatla voted in a new council that reversed the community's effort to bring the first salmon farm to the region, and "Now the industry has no local support in the north". Most of the Kitkatla voting band members do not live in the village, which is still left with an 85% unemployment rate and a litany of associated social problems.
Meanwhile, in the Central Coast native village of Klemtu, the goal is to have at least one member of each family get a job in the fish farming industry. The First Nation Band there has an active farmed salmon processing plant, their own fish harvesting vessel that brings the fish in from the farms, and most farm and processing plant workers are First Nations. 50 per cent of the village's economy is based on salmon farming, which is carried out based on a negotiated agreement with Marine Harvest Canada, which today includes the former Pan Fish Canada. An on-going, interactive environmental monitoring program is an integral part of their agreement.
