Coast Mountain News Thursday, April 9, 2015
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Vol. 31 | No. 7 Thursday, April 9, 2015
Serving the Bella Coola Valley and the Chilcotin CoastMountainNews.com
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Tensions were high in Bella Bella last week over a contested herring fishery
Photo by Tavish Campbell
Controversial herring fishery on Central Coast closed after protests, occupation BY CAITLIN THOMPSON Members of the Heiltsuk Nation did not give up their fight over what they called an “unsustainable kill-fishery” of herring located in their traditional territory. Emotions were at an all-time high early last week when Heiltsuk members took the unprecedented step of occupying the DFO office located on Denny Island, near Bella Bella on Sunday, March 30. Supporting protests sprung up in Vancouver, the Island, and Bella Coola in the following days. Late last week, the Heiltsuk emerged from the DFO offices on Denny Island victorious, as officials confirmed that Area 7 would be closed. “We did it!” declared Heiltsuk Chief Councillor Marilyn Slett to a jubilant crowd at the fisheries
office near Bella Bella, as the herring gillnet fleet departed the central coast empty. “This was our no-go zone,” said Slett, holding up a map of Area 7 in Heiltsuk territory, “and nobody went there.” After initially declining an invitation to meet the Heiltsuk, DFO’s senior B.C. manager Sue Farlinger emerged after three hours of talks with leaders on Denny Island last Tuesday, saying she needed to check with Ottawa whether the fishery would close or remain open. “The commercial herring roe fishery all of the Central Coast Management Area (Areas 6, 7, 8) has concluded,” DFO spokesperson Bate wrote in an email. The herring fishery has been a contentious and divisive fishery on the coast. Several areas have been closed in recent years due to low stocks, and DFO’s plans to open the Vancouver Island
and Haida Gwaii fisheries this year were vehemently opposed by the resident Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, the Haida, and the United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union. The Haida won an injunction in early March to stop the fishery in their area. The opening went ahead on Vancouver Island, but no herring were to be found. The Central Coast (Area 7), which has been closed for several years, was re-opened to a seine fishery last month and the backlash was immediate. The Heiltsuk collided on the water with commercial fishers as they netted hundreds of tones of herring in just a few hours in a short seine-net opening. The sustainability of the herring fishery has been a polarizing debate, with the DFO claiming that a “limited catch was sustainable” based on their updated
2015 science. A test fishery in mid-March led to the opening in the highly contested Area 7: an area the Heiltsuk claim to be fragile and unhealthy. They have voluntarily suspended their commercial gillnet licenses, and stated that the DFO did not inform them of the opening until after the seine boats were already in the water. Kelly Brown, who directs the Heiltsuk’s resource management department, says the industry took 680 tons out of the area with a recent seine fishery, and a gillnet fishery “would only add insult to injury.” “We must put conservation first. We have voluntarily suspended our communityowned commercial gillnet herring licenses for this season to allow stocks to rebuild, but DFO and industry are unwilling to follow suit,” said Brown.
The United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union backed the Heiltsuk position, advising gillnet fishers not to fish the Central Coast. “We recommended that gillnet herring fishers not fish in Area 7,” said Kim Olsen, President of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union. “However, it is up to each individual fisher to make their own decisions.” The way the DFO manages the herring fishery, and many others, has been called into question for its effectiveness. The department views and manages herring with a “mega-stock” approach. This allows them to resume the fishery in places where it’s depressed by running a “test fishery,” from which they get estimates of a stock in that general region and decide how many fish can be safely harvested. SEE HEILTSUK ON PAGE 3
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