Derby
Crew Member
Raincoast Conservation Foundation, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust and Watershed Watch Salmon Society said Wednesday they plan to challenge the eco-certification awarded to the Alaskan salmon fishery by the Marine Stewardship Council, the world's biggest eco-certification regime.
Photograph by: Ric Ernst, PNG Files
VANCOUVER — Salmon ranches and interception fisheries in Alaska are damaging B.C.'s wild salmon populations, according to three Canadian conservation groups.
Raincoast Conservation Foundation, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust and Watershed Watch Salmon Society said Wednesday they plan to challenge the eco-certification awarded to the Alaskan salmon fishery by the Marine Stewardship Council, the world's biggest eco-certification regime.
MSC gave 16 Alaskan salmon fisheries blanket certification in 2000, which remains the commission's largest and most complex of the 133 fisheries it certifies.
But the MSC's own surveillance report on the Alaskan fisheries noted concerns about the effects that the release of billions of hatchery fish into the ocean could be having on wild salmon stocks.
In all, the 2011 surveillance report noted that 19 conditions of the fishery's recertification remained unfulfilled.
"Alaskan ocean ranching and hatchery operations release billions of farm-raised fish into natural eco-systems and wild salmon populations," said Aaron Hill, a biologist with the Watershed Watch Salmon Society. "There is increasing scientific concern about the effect that flooding the North Pacific with these fish is having on wild salmon populations."
Alarm bells about the practice of ocean ranching began ringing as soon as the Alaskan fishery was certified more than 10 years ago. A 2001 report by the Environment and Natural Resources Institute at the University of Anchorage bluntly warned the practice could jeopardize the state's own wild salmon populations.
Ocean-ranched fish are hatched and reared in fresh water and then raised in ocean-based net pens where they are fed and protected from predation to gain size and strength before being released into the wild.
"These fish compete for the same food resources as wild salmon in the open ocean," said Hill. "Between Japan, Alaska, Canada and Russia more than five billion hatchery fish are released into the North Pacific and it's getting to be a real concern."
The release of the groups' concerns about the Alaskan fisheries is timed to coincide with this week's scheduled meetings in Portland, Oregon, of the Pacific Salmon Commission, the body that manages the Pacific Salmon Treaty between Canada and United States.
The groups are also concerned that indiscriminate Alaskan fisheries are intercepting sockeye and chum bound for B.C.'s Skeena and Nass Rivers and called on the Canadian government to do more to protect at-risk salmon stocks at the bargaining table.
The treaty is meant to ensure that both countries receive benefits equal to the production of salmon in their waters and to limit interception fisheries.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/busines...on+practices/5981458/story.html#ixzz1jGk6snJS
Photograph by: Ric Ernst, PNG Files
VANCOUVER — Salmon ranches and interception fisheries in Alaska are damaging B.C.'s wild salmon populations, according to three Canadian conservation groups.
Raincoast Conservation Foundation, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust and Watershed Watch Salmon Society said Wednesday they plan to challenge the eco-certification awarded to the Alaskan salmon fishery by the Marine Stewardship Council, the world's biggest eco-certification regime.
MSC gave 16 Alaskan salmon fisheries blanket certification in 2000, which remains the commission's largest and most complex of the 133 fisheries it certifies.
But the MSC's own surveillance report on the Alaskan fisheries noted concerns about the effects that the release of billions of hatchery fish into the ocean could be having on wild salmon stocks.
In all, the 2011 surveillance report noted that 19 conditions of the fishery's recertification remained unfulfilled.
"Alaskan ocean ranching and hatchery operations release billions of farm-raised fish into natural eco-systems and wild salmon populations," said Aaron Hill, a biologist with the Watershed Watch Salmon Society. "There is increasing scientific concern about the effect that flooding the North Pacific with these fish is having on wild salmon populations."
Alarm bells about the practice of ocean ranching began ringing as soon as the Alaskan fishery was certified more than 10 years ago. A 2001 report by the Environment and Natural Resources Institute at the University of Anchorage bluntly warned the practice could jeopardize the state's own wild salmon populations.
Ocean-ranched fish are hatched and reared in fresh water and then raised in ocean-based net pens where they are fed and protected from predation to gain size and strength before being released into the wild.
"These fish compete for the same food resources as wild salmon in the open ocean," said Hill. "Between Japan, Alaska, Canada and Russia more than five billion hatchery fish are released into the North Pacific and it's getting to be a real concern."
The release of the groups' concerns about the Alaskan fisheries is timed to coincide with this week's scheduled meetings in Portland, Oregon, of the Pacific Salmon Commission, the body that manages the Pacific Salmon Treaty between Canada and United States.
The groups are also concerned that indiscriminate Alaskan fisheries are intercepting sockeye and chum bound for B.C.'s Skeena and Nass Rivers and called on the Canadian government to do more to protect at-risk salmon stocks at the bargaining table.
The treaty is meant to ensure that both countries receive benefits equal to the production of salmon in their waters and to limit interception fisheries.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/busines...on+practices/5981458/story.html#ixzz1jGk6snJS
