Natives suing BC government over fish farms

Odd Grydeland

In what might be his last stand against salmon farming in B.C., the Chief of a small First Nation Band in the Broughton Archipelago, Bob Chamberlin, is launching a frontal attack on the Provincial Government in BC. The Band- Kwicksutaineuk/Ah-Kwa-Mish First Nation has as its traditional centre the Gilford Island, where some 42 of its members still live on reserve lands. The Band will have its next election of Chief and Council in May this year, after which time Chief Chamberlin's political career is uncertain.

In 2005, Chief Chamberlin made headlines in Norwegian media when he and fellow BC native Eugene Bryant teamed up with anti-salmon farming activists and for a second time attended the Annual General Meeting of Pan Fish in Stavanger, suggesting that the company had destroyed the livelihoods of native villages in BC and treathened their lives by polluting their food sources. "Fredriksen's farmed salmon is cancer causing, pollutes huge areas of the ocean, and creates food shortages in villages", stated the activists in Chamberlin's company. In 2008, Chief Chamberlin again travelled to Norway, this time to deliver a letter to the King of Norway, objecting to the fish farms that Marine Harvest are operating in the Broughton area. An audience with the King was denied. While at the Annual Shareholders' Meeting, he told Marine Harvest investors that the company is operating with double standards- having "removed all Norwegian fish farms from fjords where wild salmon migrate". "We are not a bunch of lunatic environmental people", Chamberlin was quoted.

As a rude awakening to the newly appointed Minister of Agriculture and Lands, Hon. Ron Cantelon, in a Media Advisory on Monday the Band states;