Fish

The province is expected to make a decision about lifting the moratorium this summer. The David Suzuki Foundation wants the decision to be cautious.

BC's moratorium on fish farm expansion and subsequent environmental review were triggered by an outbreak of triple antibiotic-resistant disease among BC farmed salmon.

The 1998 salmon fishery gave countless examples of ways to conduct safer fisheries, using conventional and alternative fishing technologies.

by David Lane, T . Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation fisheries researcher

This summer saw the largest experiment in BC history in selective salmon fishing. Literally, the entire coast became a selective fishing zone to protect threatened coho salmon in the North Thompson River and upper Skeena River.

Canadian federal scientists say the common additive to industrial and household detergents and sprays seems to be related to the troubles of East Coast salmon stocks. The question is, where else are these chemicals causing problems?

by Miranda Holmes

Recent Department of Fisheries and Oceans research suggests that nonylphenols (one of the breakdown products of the family of chemicals known as alkylphenol ethoxylates or APEs) may be playing a role in the failure of salmon stocks to return to many of Canada's East Coast rivers.

A volatile political climate makes fisheries forecasts jiggery-pokery.

by J. Cates

It's always difficult to predict where the fish will be found on the west coast, especially when forecasts have to be made in an atmosphere where there's always the potential for a new outbreak of political posturing between Canada and the US. The word from Fisheries Minister David Anderson is that harvesting of Pacific salmon in 1999 is likely to take place in all sectors: First Nations, commercial, and sports.

Our threatened fishing industry prompts a 10-point program to protect BC salmon.

by David Ellis

The first forecasts are in for commercial salmon fishing for 2000, and, not surprisingly, they're not good. Harvest opportunities for Fraser sockeye might range "from limited to none," says the DFO, and the northern troll fleet will probably be shut down for the season due to the concern for coho and chinook.

The climate change debate creates an Orwellian inversion of reality.

by Maureen Sager

When a man of the stature of John Fraser uses the words "Orwellian inversion of reality" to describe the political debate about climate change, you sit up and listen.

By the end of the decade, fish farming may overtake cattle ranching as a food source.

by Lester R. Brown, 2000 Worldwatch Institute (C)

Aquaculture, growing at 11 percent a year over the past decade, is the fastest growing sector of the world food economy.

Climbing from 13 million tons of fish produced in 1990 to 31 million tons in 1998, fish farming is poised to overtake cattle ranching as a food source by the end of this decade.

The Ecology Action Centre (EAC) of Halifax Nova Scotia, with support from the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, is taking the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to court. The Centre is proceeding with a legal action to protect Canada's marine fish habitat. They have brought an application for judicial review of a variation order issued by the Regional Director-General of DFO. The variation order would re-open the Canadian side of the highly productive and ecologically sensitive fishing ground called Georges Bank to groundfish draggers.