THE GROWTH OF SALMON farms on the west coast of British Columbia has been cancerous. Today, production of salmon from open netpens dwarfs the number of wild fish captured. But these developments have been accompanied by numerous problems, and our foundation has played a major role in publicizing the dangers.
To many people, salmon aquaculture seems the marine equivalent of farming on land — use the ocean currents to slosh through nets that confine large numbers of animals whose growth is sped by regular feeding. The premise is that we can improve on nature with greater survival, faster growth, and year-round availability of the fish. But as we are learning from experience with cattle, poultry, and hogs, feedlots create enormous problems of disease, inhumane conditions, and waste.
But salmon aquaculture is wrongheaded from the very start. For one thing, unlike cows, sheep, and pigs, the fish are carnivores. They must eat fish. If we don't raise lions or wolves for food, why do we grow salmon? Food fish like anchovies, herring, and sardines, which people in South America eat, are being depleted to make pellets to feed salmon. As well, vast quantities of feces accumulate beneath netpens; diseases and parasites like sea lice explode and spread to wild fish, and large numbers of alien Atlantic salmon — also being raised in west coast salmon farms — escape periodically into the Pacific. Sea lions, otters, eagles, seals, and other predators attracted to the concentrated fish in nets have been legally killed by feedlot operators to protect their “crop.” And the flesh of the farmed fish is contaminated with chemicals biomagnified from the feed fish, antibiotics, and dyes to color the flesh.
Aquaculture, like agriculture, must be a part of the food future for humanity, but it will be sustainable only when practiced according to principles that will ensure continued ecological, social, and personal health. Global health, environmental, and equity issues are poorly handled by advocates of salmon aquaculture, and chefs and the public in B.C. are catching on and showing signs of discriminating in their buying.
Ecological health also can be restored on a small, local scale. Salmon are at the center of one of our most gratifying projects, revitalizing the run to Musqueam Creek in Vancouver. In 1900, the area that now encompasses the city boasted more than fifty rivers, streams, and creeks, each with its own genetically distinctive races of salmon. Some waterways might have had fewer than a hundred spawners returning, others had hundreds of thousands, but together they supported millions of fish. The past century of human encroachment has meant creeks were filled in, streams diverted, and riverbanks cleared of vegetation and polluted as our needs trumped those of the fish. At the end of the twentieth century, only one stream in Vancouver still had wild salmon runs — Musqueam Creek.
The creek runs through the Musqueam Reserve on the west side of Vancouver, home of the Musqueam First Nation, but only a dozen or so salmon were making it back to spawn. In an area that is now heavily populated and includes many properties with riding stables, Musqueam Creek was under pressure from horses ridden through it, children playing in it, and the runoff from storm sewers and homes illegally hooked up to dump sewage into it.
In 1996, the David Suzuki Foundation was approached by the Musqueam people to help rehabilitate the creek. Willard Sparrow, grandson of the famous chief Edward Sparrow Jr., had become very concerned; in a way, the survival of that tiny salmon run seemed symbolic of the fate of his people. Could the old ways and the salmon they depend on be retained in an increasingly urban setting?
Nicholas Scapiletti was working for the foundation at the time and hit it off with Willard as the two of them began a campaign to raise money to clean up and protect “Vancouver's last salmon creek” and to educate people in the neighborhood. The Musqueam Watershed Restoration Project was begun to train Musqueam youth to care for the waterway, shore up its banks, create baffles to slow the water, plant trees along the edge, put up signs, and distribute informational flyers. Willard educated his people about the symbolic importance of the creek and got them to support a small group of stream keepers. Once, Willard was wading in the creek to check it when to his delight a woman on horseback spotted him and yelled, “Hey, the Musqueam are trying to bring the salmon back in that creek, so get out of there!” The neighbors had now taken ownership and pride in this small stream and were watching over it.
As Willard and Nick staged celebrations of the watershed, invited biologists to talk about biodiversity and nutrient flow, organized tree-planting days, and held salmon barbecues to mark the role of fish in our lives, the city and funding agencies found the restoration of Musqueam Creek irresistible. Not only did the duo get funding for the project, the city supported construction of a different kind of roadway in the surrounding area so that water could percolate back into the soil of the watershed instead of being sent down storm sewers to run into the ocean. The team even brought dead salmon from other runs and distributed them along the banks of the creek to return nutrients to the soil, as had happened naturally before “progress” intervened.
Musqueam Creek is on its way back to health; the number of returning fish rose to over fifty in 2004. Nature is incredibly generous when we give her a hand.
TARA WAS NAMED PRESIDENT of the foundation but was not paid for the long, often arduous hours she had put in to get it going. As projects were developed and staff began to pour out material, I was given credit for much of it because the organization carries my name, but in reality — as with the television shows I do — the foundation produces material through the hard work of a devoted team. Volunteers like Tara and me have been a crucial part of the organization's work and effectiveness; I have been amazed at the devotion and hours volunteers give, not just to us, but to so many important causes. They are part of the glue that holds society together.
As the foundation has taken on issues and projects, we also have become increasingly efficient in getting our message across. Our goal was to invest half of every foundation dollar in communication, since public education and awareness are crucial to our mandate of offering solutions. David Hocking, with long experience at Petrocan, came to us to head the communications team.
Having staff behind us also meant Tara and I were no longer feeling isolated or harried. If I was to talk to some special interest group or meet a political leader, the staff would often update background notes that made me so much more effective.
It is clear that the old ways of confrontation, protests, and demonstrations so vital from the 1960s through the '80s, have become less compelling to a public jaded by sensational stories of violence, terror, and sex. We need new alliances and partnerships and ways of informing people.
When the foundation was started, we were imbued with the sense of urgency implicit in the Worldwatch Institute's designation of the 1990s as “the Turnaround Decade.” The decade came and went. The world didn't change direction, but now the foundation has matured. We have earned a presence in the media, influence within the political and industrial community, and credibility with the public.
TWELVE
UP AND RUNNING
IN ITS EARLY YEARS, the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) had to acquire a membership base that would support the projects we had planned. That meant we had to become adept at getting our message out.
We picked up experience in organizing press conferences and writing press releases, articles, op-ed pieces, and other documents, and the day came when the communications group, headed by David Hocking, established a Web site. I was slow to recognize the role the Internet would play in raising our profile, and I was nervous about committing the funds. Now I appreciate the importance of that investment.