Missing fish partly fault of Natives

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It's a blistering attack on B.C.'s salmon fishery, a federal review board cast a wide net of blame over the industry for almost gutting West Coast salmon stocks last summer.

Native fishermen, as well as non-Natives, the federal fisheries department and enforcement officials, were lambasted by the report. The report, released by the Fraser River Sockeye Public Review Board this month in Vancouver, examined the disappearance of more than a million sockeye that failed to return to spawn in B.C.'s largest river system.

Tough-talking chairman John Fraser told a news conference that "another 12 hours of fishing in certain places would have caused irreparable damage to the sockeye salmon stocks."

He cited a litany of problems in the industry, including a breakdown of communication and poor morale within the fisheries department, and "serious problems with the Aboriginal Fishing Strategy."

"There was an attitude problem and a grab-all tendency by all fishermen that made it even more difficult to manage the fishery last summer," the former member and speaker of Parliament told Native and non-Native stakeholders, government officials and the media. The board made 35 recommendations to fix what's wrong with the Pacific fishery, including better monitoring and enforcement, tougher penalties for over-fishing and a revamping of the federal government's Aboriginal Fishing Strategy.

"Unless all parties work together and manage much more competently, the tragedy that befell the Atlantic cod fishery will repeat itself on the West Coast," the report said. Federal Fisheries Minister Brian Tobin, who addressed the news conference from Ottawa through a live audio feed, accepted all the board's recommendations.

He issued an equally tough five-point plan, calling for more conservation, increased enforcement, the use of scientific data to help manage the stocks, the reduction of the number of fishing boats and a 'tough stance' on Aboriginal fishing, specifically in respect to pilot sales agreements.

The sales agreements would continue, Tobin said, but the one signed with the Sto:lo Indians was suspended after a federal audit.

"It (the audit) indicated serious accountability problems with that agreement," he told the news conference. "Unless changes are made, I will not renew the sales agreement with the Sto:lo. In effect, this agreement is in receivership, until problems are addressed."

But Chief Fred Alec of the Pavilion Tribe north of Lillooet dismissed the report's finding that Native fish illegally.

"There's nothing illegal for us to be doing, because it's our resources," he said after the report's release. "It's not illegal for me to practise my own right in my own land, with my resources.

"The thieves are talking about themselves," he said, referring to non-Native fishermen.

Alec, who said the people of his Nlaka'pamux Nation fish only for food, said the Sparrow decision and Section 35 give B.C. Natives the right to fish and do what they want with the catch because they never signed treaties with the British Crown. (Section 35 refers to Aboriginal rights without defining what they are.)

He said the diminishing stocks are a result of a too large non-Native commercial fishing fleet, the result of owners' persistent lobbying of the government.

And the fish disappeared because of mismanagement by the department of fisheries, which won't be able to resume control of the industry, despite Tobin's assurances, he said.

"That's their greatest problem. They let one group screw it up." Alec hoped the Pacific sockeye would survive and longed for the days of his youth.

"The rivers were black with fish. You could watch the rivers move."