A Comparison of Salmon Seine Management Areas and the Distribution of Salmon Seine Licenses by Coastal City or Regional District, 2002
Keywords: Fishing
(Adapted from Catch-22: Conservation, Communities and the Privatization of B.C. Fisheries)
Over the past decade, Canada’s Pacific fishery has undergone fundamental changes. A combination of factors—habitat degradation, overcapacity and overcapitalization, fish stock depletion, declines in ocean productivity and depressed global fish prices—have threatened the fishing industry’s viability. In response, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans introduced a sweeping set of policies to restructure and rationalize the industry.
The new federal fisheries licensing policies included the promotion of individual fishing quotas (IFQs). Under an IFQ system, an individual or company owns a preset portion of the total allowable catch. Such policies, which gave “windfall profits” to some fishermen and allowed for the consolidation and leasing of licenses and quota, tax incentives and growing demand for allocations from First Nations and recreational fishermen, all contributed to an inflationary trend in license and quota prices.
The extremely high market value of licenses and quotas is well outside the reach of many rural working families, First Nations and younger fishermen. A fisherman needs to be a millionaire to enter into most fisheries. In effect, fisheries policy, whether intentional or not, is skewed in favor of urban-based corporations and individuals with greater access to capital and economic opportunities. Those communities most dependent on fishing for their economic lifeblood are squeezed out of British Columbia fisheries.
Map by: Charles Steinback
Created: January 1, 2004
