Wow... I think you may be on to something GLG, this could possibly be a real game changer.
http://www.courierislander.com/future-of-rec-fishery-in-bc-could-be-in-doubt-1.319641
Several weeks ago I referred briefly to a new commercial fishery for chinook salmon taking place along parts of the west coast of Vancouver Island. For reasons of space in that particular column there wasn’t an opportunity to better describe it but promised to do so in the near future, so here goes. I think it important that ardent anglers everywhere in BC understand the reasons for it as other fisheries with the same or similar legal background may well occur elsewhere in the future.
Some years ago five of the 14 individual Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations – Ahousaht, Tla-o-qui-aht, Hesquiaht, Mowachaht/Muchalaht and Ehattesaht – banded together in a legal action seeking the right to harvest and sell any species of fish found within their territories. The latter two bands reside in Nootka Sound.
In November 2009 the BC Supreme Court ruled in their favour, directing Canada and the First Nations to negotiate a new fisheries regime based on the recognition of their aboriginal rights. The court also set a two-year deadline for these negotiations to be concluded, later extended by six months at the Court of Appeal. While these negotiations took place Canada has appealed both the trial and appeal court decisions.
Approximately a year ago, what have become known as the T’aaq-wiihak Nations (meaning with permission of the Ha’wiih’ or hereditary chiefs) developed and proposed to DFO a fishery plan for 30,000 suuhaa, as chinook are known in the Nuu-chah-nulth language. It was at this juncture that the complexity of inserting a new fishery into an existing management framework for other fisheries and the relevance to the recreational fishery became clear.
As a fishery whose purpose is to catch fish for sale DFO took and remains of the view that the T’aaq-wiihak suuhaa fishery is a commercial fishery. As such it a) has a predetermined place in the hierarchy of use set out in the Salmon Allocation Policy and b) the harvest has to be accounted for in the aggregate abundance-based management regime for these fish in this area under the terms of the Pacific Salmon Treaty between Canada and the US. There is a prescribed catch ceiling for chinook salmon in the WCVI AABM fishery, which varies from year to year according to assessment of abundance. In 2012 it was 133,300 chinook, this year it’s 115,300.
As with all others, the harvest size of each sector in the AABM fishery is determined to a degree by the provisions of the allocation policy, the hierarchy of which is that once the needs of conservation have been accounted for the first harvest component is the Food, Societal and Ceremonial requirements of First Nations. DFO allocates 5,000 chinook to this.
Then, because the Salmon Allocation Policy gives a higher priority to the recreational harvest of chinook over commercial harvest in years of lower abundance, DFO next calculates the requirements of the recreational fishery for a season at full limits, which in the WCVI AABM fishery has been about 60,000 fish on average during each of the past few years. Any remaining fish (annual TAC minus 65,000) are awarded to the existing commercial gear type, the Area G troll fishery.
For reasons unclear to me, the PST chinook year starts on October 1 and so by this time last year the trollers had already harvested a significant portion of their annual allowable catch. The reality was that by then under the terms of the Salmon Treaty there weren’t 30,000 chinook salmon available for harvest unless some were removed from the recreational share of which, because it is largely a summer period fishery, only a small portion had been caught.
From a recreational sector perspective, to its credit DFO would not alter the management regime and the T’aaq-wiihak suuhaa fishery proceeded with a lower target number, eventually landing 4,573 fish by early September. Fishing took place from both conventional trollers and smaller vessels more in the style of sportfishing boats, the so-called “mosquito fleet”. The participating vessels are flagged to identify them so anglers should look for these markers as a way of avoiding any confusion on the water.
For the First Nation communities involved it was a small but positive step towards a renewed economic opportunity, however they believe that there is a long way to go before the court ruling is fully implemented according to their interpretation of it. There are some issues such as allowed area that should easier to resolve – the court ruling limits the right to harvest and sell fish out to nine miles offshore, however currently DFO keeps the usual troll fishery at least five miles off the surfline in the summer to minimize harvest of returning chinook to WCVI rivers, fish that continue to be a stock of concern. The T’aaq-wiihak Nations want to be able to fish from their smaller boats in more protected waters inshore and have been doing so thus far this year, prior to the time of concern for returning local stocks, starting mid-July.
The big issue is undoubtedly the determination of where in the allocation hierarchy aboriginal fisheries that have the right to sell fish will end up. Bear in mind that the T’aaq-wiihak Nations are unlikely to be the first and last aboriginal groups to win such a right and that they aren’t restricted to catching and selling only chinook salmon, it’s just that this is the species they’ve chosen to start with.
There are allocation policies for salmon and halibut, both different, but all other species are managed without one other than the overarching construct of conservation first followed by food fishery requirements for First Nations. There’s no explicit, written inter-sectoral allocation for rockfish, lingcod, prawns and crabs for example.
Perhaps not enough anglers, and others, give it enough thought but I’m quite sure in my own mind that the most important aspect of recreational fishery governance in the Pacific region is the priority access provided by the Salmon Allocation Policy to chinook and coho before commercial fisheries for them in years of low abundance. This is why, for example, there is no commercial fishery for chinook salmon in the Strait of Georgia, something unlikely to change until abundance increases significantly.
Should however the T’aaq-wiihak Nations challenge to the Salmon Allocation Policy result in an alteration of the existing hierarchy of use, the future of the recreational fishery in the Pacific region as we currently know it could be very much in doubt.
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