Salmon farms up and down the B.C. coast will need formal declarations from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that they don’t harm wild salmon, starting in four years.
They are unlikely to get them.
It’s hard to picture a battered federal bureaucracy that’s been reviled in B.C. for years issuing such a definitive pronouncement on such a complex, hot-button issue. But the new B.C. regime for approving open-net farms requires exactly such a declaration before the farms can get the provincial approval they need to continue operating.
So the fate of the entire industry is on the table starting now in the four-year run-up to the new system.
The other piece of the new puzzle — the requirement for First Nations approval where farms operate in their territories — is equally complex (discussed here).
Les Leyne – Times Colonist – June 23, 2018.
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