Wild Salmon Council Report delivers recommendations and goals on the fate of British Columbia's Wild Salmon

After four months of work, the members of the NDP government appointed Wild Salmon Panel have delivered their preliminary report into the issues, challenges and future hopes for the salmon fishery, a fifty three page document that covers a lot of territory when it comes to the fate of Wild Salmon in BC waters.

Created by the BC government in June of this year the fourteen member council membership included UFAWU-Unifor leader and Prince Rupert City Councillor Joy Thorkelson

 The Wild Salmon Advisory Council was co-chaired by Nanaimo area MLADoug Routley and Chief Marilyn Slett from the Heiltsuk First Nation.

The biographies of the study participants provide a look at some of the experience that the panel members brought towards the range of themes that were to be addressed as part of their work through the summer.

The terms of reference for the Advisory Council tasked the group with three guiding questions to seek solutions for:

UFAWU-Unifor's Joy Thorkelson
is one of fourteen members of
the Wild Salmon Advisory Council

Restoration and enhancement of wild salmon populations; 

Sustainable fisheries management and stewardship opportunities for communities; and 

New economic development opportunities to assist viable/sustainable community based fisheries.

Among the many themes explored during the course of their work was the state of the Wild Salmon
economy in British Columbia, with a look at both the Commercial sector and that of the recreational sector.

The report also examined the importance of wild salmon for Indigenous peoples and their communities.

The review of the Commercial Industry raised  a number of flags of concern for the Council participants, with the study making note that the benchmark year for some of the current troubles came in 1995 when the following issues arose:

Lower salmon abundance, attributed in some combination to ocean conditions, habitat failures, predation and fishing activities;  

Increasingly risk-averse fisheries management. Precautionary management measures meant lower harvest rates and less mixed-stock fishing in the ocean; 

DFO management decisions to reallocate salmon from the commercial sector to recreational and Indigenous Peoples’ fisheries, reducing the amount of fish available to the commercial sector; and 

The growth of the aquaculture industry internationally which initially served to depress prices.

The study also observes how from those issues, changes put in place from 1996 into the 2000's only served to make things worse.

Creation of different licences for each fishing area on the coast, which altered the practice of ‘following the fish’ along the coast in favour of restricting each vessel’s activity to a single area;  

Single gear licencing, which required harvesters to choose one gear type; • Introduction of quota into other fisheries, which required salmon harvesters to purchase quota for other species that had traditionally supplemented salmon incomes in years of lower abundance; 

Permitting the stacking of licenses and quota onto one vessel; 

Permitting the ownership of fisheries quota by non fish harvesters, and the leasing of this quota to active harvesters, thereby increasing the cost of accessing fish to harvest; and; 

Salmon licence buybacks to encourage harvesters to exit the industry.

The result of those measures having resulted in a 50 percent reduction in the number of commercial salmon licences and an 80 per cent decrease in the number of active vessels.

For Indigenous communities the dominant objectives when it comes to access to fisheries follow three key elements:

Increased salmon abundance

A reallocation of salmon   

A greater degree of integration into BC's Commercial and recreational fisheries.

Towards those issues of note the report observed that today, the BC First Nations Fisheries Council (FNFC) works to increase Indigenous Peoples’ access to fisheries and their involvement in fisheries management and decision-making, with the work of FNFC is organized into thirteen regions.

Most operate fisheries programs at both the individual community level and in some form of aggregate organization such as the  Skeena Fisheries Commission, Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance.

The activities of both individual and/or aggregate fisheries programs include: salmon assessment; catch monitoring; hatcheries and low-tech enhancement; habitat restoration; and fisheries management. Most of these activities take place with the support of federal and provincial management agencies.

The observations related to the Recreation Sector noted that the sector accounts for nearly half of the GDP of BC's fisheries sector, with the recreational fishery and its associated businesses forming part of the broader outdoor recreation and tourism sector offerings in BC.

From that the report notes how the recreation sector provides a significant contribution to local economies, benefiting both those who provide direct fishing services as well as ancillary services such as accommodations, food and beverage, and transportation.

The study also highlighted the work of the recreation sector when it comes to salmon enhancement and monitoring programs in the province.

When it comes to recommendations, there aren't many, with the main note of interest from the study related to how the recreational fishing licences have remained the same since 1996, and that there is an opportunity to increase revenues generated from licence sales even to meet inflation that could be explored. The study also observes that at this point the Federal licence sales do not flow automatically to the regions, but are instead delivered to General Revenues.


The Conclusion to the report provides a look at what the study participants suggest are the seven conditions for success in addressing the issues facing Wild Salmon:

It is imperative that we learn from past efforts. There have been billions of dollars spent on hundreds of experiments – large and small. The wisdom, experience and best practices from this time spent and these investments made must inform our future course of action. 

Peer-reviewed science, traditional and local knowledge, and ecosystem-based management must inform our approach. We must commit to learning as we progress and recognize the uniqueness of each place and every circumstance. 

We must acknowledge the uncertainties inherent in working with nature. Work to return wild salmon abundance is happening amidst an unpredictable future due to climate change. 

Communities that depend on aquatic resources, and the people who make their living from fishing or from its ancillary services, are at the heart of this initiative. They are committed to the cause, knowledgeable about the issues and dependent upon a good outcome. There are no better allies for this work. 

New forms of collaborative governance that recognize the unique and important role of Indigenous Peoples and that value the advice of stakeholders are a critical component of building long term success.

Careful and strategic planning, long term investments and effective systems of federal-provincial-Indigenous Peoples management across the life cycle of salmon should form the backbone of the Wild Salmon Strategy. 

Finally, immediate and strategic actions, guided by experience and science, that will shore up the weakest links, garner the fastest results, and situate BC’s wild salmon for the greatest possible future, must begin.

The report comes to and end with the recommendation of three goals for action towards a Made in British Columbia Wild Salmon Strategy

You can review how they plan to achieve those goals, as well as the scope of the entire study from the full document available here.

The report will now be submitted to the Legislature's Select Standing Committee of Agriculture, Fish and Food in the weeks to come, allowing for members of the Committee to review its findings and chart the path ahead for addressing the issues for Wild Salmon in British Columbia.

For more items of interest related to the North Coast fishery see our archive page here.

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