UFAWU finds common ground with stakeholders on Skeena fishery

The largest fishing industry union in the province has come down in favour of many of the recommendations from the recent Skeena Independent Science Review Panel, finding that many of their concerns match up with what the union has been suggesting for many years now.

Those shared beliefs make for a good base for both to carry on with their concerns to the Federal Government and seek changes to the way that all stakeholders are involved in the industry.

Commercial fishermen back Skeena suggestions
BY KRIS SCHUMACHER ,
The Daily News
Published: Monday, June 16, 2008
Pages three and five

Despite some initial concerns about having a group of scientists make recommendations that could impact the future the of the Skeena River fisheries, many local commercial fishermen have shown support for nearly all 23 recommendations made by the Skeena Independent Science Review Panel.

United Fishermen and Allied Worker's Union (UFAWU-CAW) northern representative Joy Thorkelson said at one point during the recent full-day public meeting among Skeena fishery stakeholders in Terrace, she was "absolutely amazed" to hear that the panel's findings supported some of the same recommendations the union has made for the Skeena.

"It was a response to some of the sports interests who talked about a steelhead crisis," she said. "Their response was that there was no steelhead crisis on the Skeena River, and that there is no data to show any impact by the commercial fleet on steelhead since the 1970s, and that certain up-river interests have been using a false conservation cry in order to reallocate fish up-river."

The union also agreed with the first recommendation of the panel, the need to confront “major tradeoffs decisions” with “explicit public decisions about the loss of biodiversity,” as well as better communication between government levels and stakeholder groups, furthering the Tyee test fishery, avoiding late-season openings to protect severely depressed stocks such as chum salmon, and the creation of a Skeena Science Committee to analyze and review to provide information related to assessment and management of Skeena fish stocks.

However, the union does share the perception of many stakeholders that there was almost a complete absence of sport sector information in the panel’s report. One of the things Thorkelson told the panel was that if a science student was to look back at the report in 15 years, they might be led to think that anglers didn’t exist on the Skeena in 2008 or that if they did, they had not impact on the watershed, when in fact they are the largest users of salmon. She also said commercial fishermen had a problem with the manner in which their sector came under specific scrutiny in the past for catch-and-release survivability, in light of there being very little monitoring or data collection in the marine and freshwater recreation fishing.

“If you’re going to be concerned about the commercial catch-and-release, when we’ve had study, after study, when we’ve held fish for 72 hours and we know the survivability of our fish, why the discrimination in the report? Thorkelson asked the panel.

With those and only two other disagreements, the UFAWU-CAW agreed with the majority of the recommendations made in the new report, and it’s members are hopeful that the work of the panel will be taken into consideration for future planning of fisheries in the Skeena, including a new governance model for decision-making and management of Skeena across all sectors.

“Although nobody knows what this new watershed governance model is going to look like, it’s going to be the people who live on the watershed who have to make those goals and make the trade-offs,” said Thorkelson.

“That’s the importance of that process, is that there’s going to have to be trade-offs made on the watershed, and that there’s going to be a new system to do that.
Nobody wants any stocks to fail from overfishing, but there’s no data from the sports community on what they’re taking. So it’s very difficult to say, if the stocks are low, who is responsible for it,” said Thorkelson.

Because of the opposition to certain elements of the panel’s report and recommendations, the Addendum to the Skeena independent Science Panel Report was released on Friday that seeks to clarify several points of contention.

At the public meeting, many stakeholders took exception the use of the term “overfishing,” which the panel reiterated was used in the report to describe depressed stocks where spawner abundance is below, what’s required to produce the maximum sustainable catch, and does not imply imminent extinction.

The panel also reiterated that the limited data available on steelhead does not support reports of low steelhead numbers by anglers, and that better quantitative data is “sorely” needed to determine steelhead status in the Skeena River.

Perhaps most importantly, the panel amended the previous recommendation to implement widespread use of ‘tangle-tooth’ nets into the commercial fishery. Both Fisheries and Oceans Canada and commercial harvesters expressed great concern about that recommendation, particularly the fact that the panel had based the opinion on only anecdotal information.

The new amended recommendation calls for the staging of a careful, large-scale experimental test of tangle nets and other selective fishing options, with careful experimental design and monitoring of specific concerns.

The panel also stood behind its claim that there was a ‘pitifully low’ amount of data for most of the marine and freshwater recreational fisheries in recent years, and that reliable catch monitoring procedures be implemented for all recreational fisheries that catch salmon and steelhead.

“We strongly encourage people in the Skeena region to move ahead with their recent initiatives to develop open and collaborative relationships among all parties, and to implement our recommendations to help inform a shared decision-making process,” wrote the panel in their report addendum.

“We also urge you to see beyond any misunderstandings created by terminology or limitations in data available for analysis, and any controversial statements that were brought up at the public meeting in Terrace on June 10. What should endure over the long term is the willingness of all parties to improve the salmon and steelhead situation in the region.