5 Vancouver Island native bands get commercial fishery
- Thread starter Swiggy
- Start date
trophywife
Crew Member
maybe we can finally get some band backed net pen projects going now.
NootkaSounder
Active Member
My cousin has been participating in this fishery, the problem is to find buyers at the docks. as he is from gold river and the closest buyers are in Zaballos and Tofino. but during a commercial fishery sometimes they aren't always their. the program needs more communication.
Sculpin
Well-Known Member
That's a positive out look and possibility for sure.
finaddict
Well-Known Member
It may well be FT, but we as sports anglers had better start to read the writing on the wall and align ourselves with our native brothers. If it is true that they will soon own the resource, then we should make sure we can keep our access open by working with them rather than continuing to fight every battle as the gain more and more of the resource.The fox now has control of the henhouse.
This is a disastrous ruling. Just watch and see.
Soon there will be no crab or prawns left as well as Halibut
Not an ideal situation, but the alternative may well be no more angling unless you buy a license to do so from the local band that nows owns all living things within their territory.
finaddict
Well-Known Member
As the lead plaintiff in the case for his community, Atleo said the federal government should not be fighting First Nations on these rights.
Atleo said the end of the legal odyssey has implications for First Nations across the country, and not just for fish.
This is the latest of 190 court cases that First Nations have won concerning their aboriginal rights and title to natural resources, Atleo said.
The federal government should not be spending millions of dollars fighting First Nations, he added.
"It underscores a fundamental need to transform the relationship with Canada. Canada stands on a legal foundation of denial in recognizing and implementing title rights and treaty rights," Atleo said.
"It's really, truly time to transform the full relationship between First Nations and Canada and for Canada to not be fearful that the recognition of rights is going to somehow take away from others. In fact, shared prosperity can be won for everybody."
Atleo said the end of the legal odyssey has implications for First Nations across the country, and not just for fish.
This is the latest of 190 court cases that First Nations have won concerning their aboriginal rights and title to natural resources, Atleo said.
The federal government should not be spending millions of dollars fighting First Nations, he added.
"It underscores a fundamental need to transform the relationship with Canada. Canada stands on a legal foundation of denial in recognizing and implementing title rights and treaty rights," Atleo said.
"It's really, truly time to transform the full relationship between First Nations and Canada and for Canada to not be fearful that the recognition of rights is going to somehow take away from others. In fact, shared prosperity can be won for everybody."
NootkaSounder
Active Member
The fox now has control of the henhouse.
This is a disastrous ruling. Just watch and see.
Soon there will be no crab or prawns left as well as Halibut
They have a commercial quota limit just like normal commercial fishing vessles
pescador
Well-Known Member
Is there a risk that this is the thin edge of the wedge in that the bands can decide on who (sport fishers) can fish within their Treaty Land areas? I'm referring to the recent announcement in Gold River that stated pre approval by the band was required for any non locals (FN and otherwise as I read it) to fish/hunt on their territorial land areas, but was later retracted.
finaddict
Well-Known Member
That was my concern as well. If that is the case, locals better start to cozy up to the bands and get to know them real well. ;-)
Aces
Well-Known Member
They are already trying to get sportfishing banned in Clayoquot Sound. Attending those round table meetings in Ahousat was like being under attack.
We were hoping that DFO would win their appeal.
Aces
Well-Known Member
Sustainability is not in their dictionary
Bows Up
Well-Known Member
Is it in Harper"s ? Working with First Nations may turn out to be the future. They have issues {asshats} for sure but it isn"t like we don't.
Does anyone trust Harper or the corporations he works for ?
Ah, to live in interesting times......
Maybe Harper knows exactly what he's doing. He's not exactly putting a lot into fisheries. OIL! Now there's something the natives have never had a historic claim to. Do you think 90% of Canadians living East of the Rockies (the majority of voters) could name three species of Pacific Salmon?
Where even to begin with this quote...
Fishtofino: Pre-contact aboriginal population estimates for BC vary widely with some estimates ranging from a conservative 200,000 to more than a million. Most authorities put the figure at a conservative 300,000. By post-contact 1929, the population had dropped to 22,000. The Kwakwaka'wakw population alone was reduced From a pre-contact population estimated to be 19,000 to about 1,000 by 1921 primarily by waves of epidemics. Similarly, the precontact (1775) population of Snunéymuxw people is believed to have been about 5,000. In 1838 a census figure was 1,000. All these pre-contact people had to eat something. it wasn't from Overweightea.
So how did they generate and conserve these pre-contact populations and societies?
Were the economies based on the "rape-pillage-and-plunder" corporate mentality? Or was there some other social dynamic at work like what is now termed "sustainability" or "conservation"?
The populations of Pacific salmon seemed to be abundant until at least the 1950s or so.
What have we done, in comparison? Whose dictionary doesn't include "sustainability"?
Over the 10,000-14,000 years of settlement in North America - The aboriginal peoples or "First Nations" developed their own societies that had built within their practices and governance ways to ensure that the resources did not get depleted. This is especially true for the aboriginal groups in what is now called BC. There were some failures, particularly in the marginal areas of the American South-West where some groups got populated past what the marginal land could provide when climatic changes made the land less productive. Same goes for the large city-states of the Incas and Astecs - although the Spanish Conquistadors also had an influence in the decay of those civilizations.
BUT overall - aboriginals within Canada were the original "conservationists" long before that word was coined, and long before Europeans and Colonization arrived.
In some areas, some groups still have a functioning hereditary system that performs a similar function that it did many thousands of years ago protecting against over-extraction. In many areas, that system is now but a distant memory.
We have all been impacted by Colonization and subsequent to that - the Capitalist system that needs continual "growth" and new resources to fuel the Stock Market. The problem is - we only have 1 planet to use - only 1 spaceship to inhabit. We can't keep expanding our resource needs indefinitely. I think we have a much bigger problem than what happens when we acknowledge the developing co-management input from a group of peoples that want the resources to last for their kids and their grandkids. These peoples are NOT the enemy.
Big Green Machine
Well-Known Member
My hope is that the resource will be returned to the Bands, but not all bands are created equal, many will do a great job, but others will not. I hope the courts have developed some criteria for making these decisions. I look at the Okanagan First Nation Alliance and they have their act together. Can the success of one band be replicated in other areas?
Great question BGM! Possibly - is the short answer. Most FN bands are set-up to fail in one way or another. Mostly it is financial. Most bands lack the appropriate financial resources to attract and retain the appropriately trained and experienced professionals that can make a difference and compete with other governmental officials on their level to affect real change. Some bands have alternative and additional revenues from outside sources (oil, real estate, etc.) that give them that leaway to hire and retain these professionals while slowly working their own people into those jobs through training and education. Unfortunately those bands with adequate resources to do this are far and between. Sounds like the OFNA might be one of those. Tsawwassen maybe another. That's why it is really in nobodies interest to keep the reserves poor, illiterate, and w/o real options. Nobody -that is - except our government who want a free hand in giving everything away to China for free so they can fluff-up their stock market portfolio. Remote, resource-based communities that make decisions on a different timeline other than quarterly shareholder profits and elections - and have a real say in co-management decisions - are a real threat to this government.
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How about using some common sense here. Natives are human beings with the same faults as the rest of us. Before Euopeans arrived they weren't living under a capitalist system and therefor there was no financial or status gains to be had by over harvesting whatever. In fact they gave their possessions away to show their power and position within the bands. Now they find themselves having to adapt to our way where it is very dog for himself and your gains mean someone else fails. The only difference with the natives is they get special treatment under our system which has and will continue to allow the human fault called greed to run rampant. It would be no different if we had the special rights. This has to end!! We need to mutually agree to one set of rules under one system.
nicnat
Well-Known Member
if you read the whole ruling you will see they have to negotiate with dfo for what they can take, the resource will still be regulated federally. it's obviously in their best interest, as in all of ours, to fish without a detriment to the resource over all. i think the ruling is good for all in the long run. sure there will be hicups here and there.
cheers nicnat
cheers nicnat
Aces
Well-Known Member
There is not much accountability in their fishery except for the fish that went to the buyers. We saw it last year where i live......... tubs of oversize halibut being bought off the dock and going in the back doors of restaurants very late at night. No records of those fish i'm sure.
