I wrote an article last month on the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye salmon run of 2009. Shortly afterwards, a document came into my hands confirming the assertion that open-net fish farms pose the greatest immediate threat to salmon in our province.

The document I refer to comes in the form of an editorial written by Judge Georg Fredrik Rieber-Mohn of the Great Wild Salmon Commission of Norway, who faced the same problem of salmon depletion in the fjords of that country during the ‘90s. The following are selected quotations from the complete text:

“I fear Canada will teach Norway a lesson today [Feb 16, 2009] on the Olympic ice rink but I hope Canada can learn the lessons of Norway with respect to wild salmon and open net cage salmon farms.

“As a Norwegian judge – the former Attorney General of Norway – I was appointed some fifteen years ago to devise a plan to protect wild Atlantic salmon.

“In 1999, I was proud to present the so-called ‘wild salmon plan’ which proposed national protection of the 50 best salmon rivers and 9 most important fjord-systems across Norway – the national laksfjords – where salmon farms would be prohibited.

“However, the intense lobbying from the salmon farming industry watered down the proposals so that by the time they passed the parliament in 2007 the protected fjords had become smaller and gave less protection against the salmon farming industry.

“The result has been a heavy defeat for wild salmon and a huge win for sea lice . . . The areas protected from open cage salmon farms are simply too small to offer adequate protection from sea lice.

“Scientists in Norway detail growing sea lice resistance to the chemicals designed to kill them. The Norwegian Food and Safety Authority recently reported nearly 100 cases of chemical treatment failures as sea lice are now immune . . .

“Put simply, we had an open goal to save wild salmon but we missed the target. Now we are dealing with the consequences of poor defending. Atlantic salmon in the wild in Norway are now threatened with extinction in many rivers in Norway.”

After referring to other scientific authorities, the judge concludes: “If you want to protect wild salmon, then you have to move salmon farms away from migration routes.”

And his final plea: “In today’s hockey game, Canada and Norway may be on opposing sides but in the fight to protect wild salmon we are all on the same team.”

Our government’s leisurely response to the salmon collapse is a federal inquiry led by B.C.’s Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen, its recommendations to appear May 1, 2011! Besides which, aside from the wisdom or folly of those recommendations, they can only be “advisory.”

One might reasonably ask, Is this an appropriate response an urgent crisis?

Incidentally, there has already been a 95-page B.C. Pacific Salmon Forum Report, delivered to the B.C. government earlier this year, which consulted hundreds of groups, received dozens of submissions and collaborated with over a hundred scientists to come up with 16 recommendations to better manage watersheds and regulate salmon farms (www.pacificsalmonforum.ca).

Do we need yet another report?

Our local Salmon Talks group has a sharper response to the obvious. In a press release, the Talks call for the immediate “harvesting and emptying” of three farms in the Georgia Strait, specifically the farms at Sonora, Venture and Cyrus Rocks – all Norwegian-owned – before the Fraser River salmon smolts reach the area of outmigration in May.

There are, let it be noted, 80 fish farms in the Georgia and Johnstone Straits, 30 of which lie directly in the path of migrating smolts.

I wish here to make comment. You may regard it as somewhat of an aside.

The current salmon situation illustrates to me the dangerous inability of our system of governance to act when action is necessary. Our decision-making powers are so divided and chopped up that agreement is unreachable.

Some of us are inclined to blame DFO for the continued presence of salmon farms, but DFO takes its cues from government, and government, right to the top, takes orders from trans-national corporations, and trans-national corporations claim some sort of higher ground beyond national concerns, and round and round we go, dithering, while urgent questions sit by unanswered.

But onward.

Remember that the Wild Salmon Café will happen March 20 at the friendship centre in Lillooet. (More information is available through salmontalks@gmail.com.

To read the complete editorial by George Rieber-Mohn quoted above, write to ubcic@ubcic.bc.ca.