Okay, very good. We'll be brief, then.
We are here representing a coalition of groups in British Columbia called the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, which is made up of the groups that are here at the table, and also Watershed Watch and the Living Oceans Society. We've been together as a group for 10 years now, working on issues related to environmental impacts from salmon aquaculture and looking at solutions, which we believe very much point in the direction of closed-containment technologies that can eliminate most or all of the environmental impacts that have been flagged by the scientific community.
My organization is the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation. For clarity, this organization is separate from the David Suzuki Foundation, with a different history and a focus solely on fisheries, whereas the David Suzuki Foundation has a very broad mandate.
I want to introduce the issue of closed containment, which we believe is a very viable solution to the problems described in the scientific literature regarding open-net salmon farming in British Columbia. We believe it manages to accomplish the key solutions.
Sea lice is one of the most noted subjects, as far as impacts from salmon aquaculture are concerned. With closed containment, there would be no sea lice problems whatsoever, and no disease problems feeding back into the ocean environment. We're assuming that most closed-containment systems would be on land; therefore, those problems would be eliminated entirely.
The problem of escaped farmed fish would be eliminated entirely, as would the problem of marine mammal kills--that's sea lions and seals, which happen in large numbers on the B.C. coast because of predator attacks--and the problem of antibiotics and pesticides going into the ocean environment. All of these problems can be solved by land-based closed containment. That is why our coalition sees it as an alternative that should be mandated and should be supported by governments, and we should be moving towards a transition on those technologies.
We believe there are a number of myths that exist as far as closed containment is concerned, and those myths are very easily addressed. Often it's said that closed-containment technologies are not economically or technically viable, and our speakers will be addressing those issues.
It has been noted by some that there is more energy consumption and therefore more greenhouse gas. There's also waste produced that has to be dealt with. In fact, we believe that all of those issues can be solved very easily by using the waste as a resource. Fish waste can be used as a fertilizer for aquaponics that grow other products, notably agricultural products in greenhouses. It has been tried with a lot of different kinds of aquaculture.
Also, fish waste can be used as an energy source. Through anaerobic digestion it can create enough energy to run an entire closed-containment system and probably produce some excess energy as well.
With that as an introduction, I'm going to give the floor to John Werring. John is from the David Suzuki Foundation.