Can Aquaponics expansion of fish farms place tremendous pressure on already imperiled wild salmon

November 28, 2008 by Amaete Umanah
Filed under: Aquaponics, Commercial Aquaponics

Aquaponics: Can expansion of fish farms place tremendous pressure on already imperiled wild salmon

A coalition of environmental groups is sounding the alarm about the provincial government allowing some fish farm operators to greatly increase the size of their operations.

The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform has received information that fish farm companies are seeking approval to roughly "double current licensed production on several farms in critical wild salmon migration routes such as the Broughton Archipelago and the northern Georgia Strait," said Catherine Stewart of Living Oceans Society, one of the organizations in CAAR."On a site-by-site basis, some farms could triple, quadruple or increase sixfold their current licensed production levels," Stewart said.

"It's a recipe for disaster. An increase in production of this nature will place tremendous pressure on already imperiled wild salmon stocks and the marine ecosystems around these salmon farms."

Previously, Stewart had been quite critical of Mainstream Canada's "years of unlicensed over-production."

"This demonstration of contempt for Canadian regulations by Norwegian multinational Cermaq, Mainstream's parent company, and Cermaq's major shareholder, the government of Norway is appalling," Stewart said.

The coalition which includes Living Oceans, the Georgia Strait Alliance and David Suzuki Foundation, met with former Minister of Agriculture Pat Bell months ago.

"We wanted to start a dialogue with the industry and the government and we asked for information regarding the industry's plans so that we could all be on a level playing field," Stewart said.

Since then, Bell has been shuffled out of the agriculture portfolio and Stan Hagen has assumed the post.

Stewart said she thinks that was why it may have taken the provincial government months to provide CAAR with the information the coalition was seeking.

"The province finally did give us a list and we were shocked to see the province has already approved some of these amendments to fish farm licences before we even started the dialogue."

These expansions to some fish farms were approved without any public notice, she said.

This article is courtesy of www.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/news/story.html?id=78a9da92-3f86-4b93-bf48-57c1bbac1994

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