Thank you.
We know you have heard many things about B.C. fisheries, but it is important to understand the context, and what we would like to do is provide that context.
I sent six slides over. I don't know if the committee members have been shown them, but when the committee members do get a chance to look at them, they'll see that the differences between landed values in Atlantic Canada and Pacific Canada. It shows the fisheries in the two regions are very different. In Atlantic Canada there are fisheries that have landed values in excess of $500 million. In contrast, the most valuable fisheries on the Pacific coast are in the range of $30 million to $50 million.
The industry has experienced some profound change over the past 30 years. In inflation-adjusted terms, the landed value today is just over half of what it was 20 years ago. Landed value has fallen from an annual average of about $720 million to $385 million. The commercial salmon and herring fisheries are now a fraction of what they once were. Salmon, for example, used to generate 48% of the total landed value but today accounts for only 17%. Groundfish and shellfish fisheries have grown in importance and today account for 34% and 37% of total landed value, respectively.
Looking at the salmon fishery, commercial salmon landed weight and value have declined over time. Landings have dropped by 69%, while value has dropped by 81%. We have seen changing ocean conditions and reallocations to first nations in-river fisheries and to the recreational fishing sector. That has reduced the amount of salmon available to commercial harvesters. At the same time, conservative management has been adopted, and harvest rates have been reduced, from 70% or 80% to 30% or 40%, as we move to protect weak stocks.
These reduced harvest levels, combined with increased competition in world seafood markets, particularly from Alaska and farmed salmon production, have resulted in reduced annual landed values, declining by 81% compared with what we saw in the early 1990s.
The roe herring fishery shows a story similar to salmon. Lower ocean productivity and conservative management have reduced harvests. This fishery, before management changes to bring in more conservative management, used to significantly exceed allowable harvest limits, but these new management measures introduced in 1997 have done a better job of bringing harvests in line with allowable catch limits. These reduced harvests combined with the collapse of the Japanese “bubble” economy—Japan is basically the only market for this product—have resulted in a significant reduction in the value generated from this fishery, an 88% drop from what was seen in the early 1990s.
Moving on to the groundfish fisheries, groundfish has also seen a decline in landed weight as more conservative management has been adopted. Our groundfish fisheries have moved, from fisheries where overharvesting occurred and there was rampant at-sea discarding and misreporting of catch, to fisheries today that have 100% at-sea monitoring and 100% dockside monitoring and full accountability of all the catch, regardless of whether it was retained or released at sea.
These management changes, while they have provided significant conservation benefits that have resulted in a reduced harvest, have allowed more value to be extracted from the resource. Harvesters are now able to provide the market with year-round or almost year-round fresh product instead of frozen product. They are extracting more value from a pound of fish.
Turning to the shellfish fisheries, these have also seen a decline in landed weight, and again it is due to adoption of more conservative management. Their landed value has actually increased. Management changes in the dive fisheries, similar with what we have seen with groundfish, have allowed more value to be extracted from the catch, and the spot prawn and crab fisheries have developed new markets and grown in importance.
On the Pacific coast we have moved to more conservative management, which has significantly reduced harvests and, therefore, also the value of the fisheries. In the past these fisheries were unsustainable. We were overharvesting—