Public Sector Fishery Critical Economic Zones

Rockfish

Well-Known Member
Public Sector Fishery Critical Economic Zones

It has occurred to me that those who are committed to closing down all public sector ocean fishing and to a lesser degree ocean recreational boating on the pacific coast are very good at the public relations propaganda game. Yes they are starting to come after you non- fishing recreational boaters also, you are next with the early adoption of completely closed no go sanctuary zones. They have poorly rationalized and often not evidenced based critical habitat and sanctuary area charts that they will want ever expanded until they cover the entire coast.

They have been successful in getting a very weak current Federal government to buy into this propaganda and adopt it. From what I understand even they are shocked at how completely the current federal government capitulated to their demands and now perceive the current government as weak and ripe for even more extreme demands. Historically Federal Governments have balanced many competing interests. This current Federal Government has demonstrated, at least so far, that they are incapable of doing that.

We need to offer a counter narrative that focuses on just how valuable the Public Sector Fishery is. That this is an economic engine that if supported can continue to generate billions in economic activity, especially for our coastal communities. Further, comparatively, it is a very environmentally friendly economic engine with a very small environmental foot print.

Finally it is good for society as a whole and BC and Canada would be a lot better off if more people got their kids out of the big cities and away from their cell phones, video games, big city depression and related drug use deaths and get them on the water fishing. In my experience given a choice between going for a boat ride or cell phones and video games, kids will prefer the video games and phones but when given the fishing experience, that changes and will provide them a fun, exciting, family activity that has the side benefit of providing some healthy food that they have the accomplishment of bringing home themselves.

We need our own Public Relations Tools and a good one to start with would be to develop our own charts of Public Sector Fishery Critical Economic Zones. In the future when they pull out their charts with more closures we pull out ours and say not so fast. It would also give us a base to roll back some of the most damaging closures. This would take an organization or several like SFI and SVIAC etc. to determine where the critical fishing zones are and for what species, (salmon, crabs, prawns etc.). We would also need those with the computer graphics skills to develop the slick color coded electronic and printed charts just like the ones that they keep hammering us over the head with. They are able to get DFO to spend our tax dollars to develop their charts for them. Perhaps we could have the Federal Government and, DFO provide a little balance and actually publish Public Sector Fishery Critical Economic Zone Charts along with the ever expanding closure to fishing and boating zone charts. One does wonder if that could happen without a change in the Federal Government.
 
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