The B.C. Salmon Farmers Association recently announced their intent to increase open-net farmed salmon production in B.C. waters by 43 per cent (to 100,000 metric tonnes) by 2020 with a further increase to 150,000 metric tonnes by 2025. That’s a 100% increase over today’s current production levels.
This expansion process has already begun. Government decisions are now pending for two completely new open-net salmon farms. If approved, these two farms would be on the migration route of the Fraser River Sockeye and many other wild salmon stocks (near Hope Island, north of Port Hardy).
The David Suzuki Foundation says with recent changes to the federal Fisheries Act, the former Navigable Waters Protection Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, there will no longer be any environmental assessments of, or formal transparent public review processes for fish farm applications.
“This approach to expansion is outrageous,” says Dr. Craig Orr, Executive Director of Watershed Watch. “DFO is continuing to ignore the deadlines and recommendations of the $26 million Cohen Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon of the Fraser River in which Justice Cohen explicitly recommends that salmon farm siting criteria be revised to reflect new science. There is no indication this is happening.”
However in January DFO spokesperson Melanie Carkner told the Vancouver Sun Canada has “some of the strictest regulations in the world”.