Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to present today.
My name is Eric Angel. I am the fisheries program manager for the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Our fisheries program is known as “Uu-a-thluk”, which means “taking care of” in the Nuu-chah-nulth language.
Salmon are integral to the culture and the economy of the Nuu-chah-nulth nations, and that's been the case for thousands of years. The courts have recognized the importance of salmon to Nuu-chah-nulth, most recently in the B.C. Court of Appeal decision in the Ahousaht fishing rights case.
The Court of Appeal also recognized how important it is for government to work with the Nuu-chah-nulth nations in implementing their fishing rights. That's what I want to talk to you about today—the value to government and to society more generally of sharing the responsibility for making decisions that will affect our well-being long into the future.
The crisis facing Pacific salmon today has been decades in the making. It's a complex problem with multiple causes.
You've heard from Dr. Beamish about the ocean survival issues. There is degradation of salmon habitat on land, overfishing, potentially ocean-based aquaculture, predation by marine mammals and overcapacity from too many fish in the ocean.
You also heard from earlier witnesses about ways to address problems: restoring salmon habitat, building resilience to climate change impacts, reducing fishing pressures, improving monitoring and enforcement, moving salmon farming operations to land and increasing hatchery production and enhancement. These are all important measures and they surely can help, but we've been doing a lot of them for a long time already, and no one approach is going to be sufficient.
From our perspective, the most important thing the government and DFO can do to address the decline of Pacific salmon would be to recognize the passion, knowledge and capacity that exist in first nations in coastal communities throughout B.C. and to work closely and directly with those first nations in coastal communities on a regional basis to decide how best to use the financial and human resources that exist and that are being made available.
On the west coast of Vancouver Island we have an organization that is fit for that purpose. The West Coast Aquatic Governance Board was brought into being over 20 years ago by the Nuu-chah-nulth nations working with regional, federal, provincial governments and stakeholders in the area. There are representatives from everyone with an interest and a role to play in promoting the health of salmon and salmon ecosystems: first nations; the regional, provincial and federal governments; commercial and recreational fishers; salmon aquaculture firms; forestry companies; tourism operations; hatcheries; and environmental NGOs.
Today the board continues to operate, running salmon harvest and stewardship round tables in each of the major fishing areas on the west coast of the Island. These round tables reduce conflict among everyone involved. They promote win-win solutions for the participants and they are highly cost-effective.
For many years now, the governance board and the round tables have operated on a shoestring budget of a few tens of thousands of dollars each year. Recently, Nuu-chah-nulth nations, working through West Coast Aquatic, submitted a proposal to DFO to use a small portion of what remains of the Pacific salmon treaty mitigation fund to support the operations of the board. We're asking that we be able to do that or that they commit a very modest amount of the new Pacific salmon strategy monies to supporting West Coast Aquatic on a long-term basis.
It's important to understand that there are opportunities here and that this isn't simply a crisis. For decades we've had an economy built around maximizing the extraction of resources, including salmon, from rural regions of B.C. That isn't sustainable, and that should be clear to everyone by now, but it doesn't mean our salmon-based economies have to collapse and that coastal communities and first nations in particular have to suffer the consequences. We can shift our focus to restoring salmon and salmon ecosystems. We can build a restoration economy that creates long-lasting jobs and brings salmon back to health. This will take generations, but we can start to see the benefits immediately, and the Nuu-chah-nulth nations are ready to lead the way.
Nuu-chah-nulth co-founded West Coast Aquatic because we know that the only way forward is to work with our neighbours, the newcomers. You can see this in the Nuu-chah-nulth commitment to iisaak, respect for all living things; and to hishuk’ish tsawalk, the interconnectedness of everything. We just need the government and DFO to recognize what is already here. If we do that, if we build on our strengths and work together instead of against one another, we can tell our children and our children's children that we did the right thing.
Thank you.