(Part 1 of 2, click here for Part 2)
Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is in the midst of consultations about the immediate future of fish farms in the Discovery Islands and transitioning the open net pen industry out of coastal British Columbian waters by 2025. But DFO approved the expansion of Cermaq Canada’s farms at Bawden Point, Millar Channel and Dixon Bay in Clayoquot Sound.
Continue reading DFO approves three fish farm expansions in Clayoquot Sound
More than 12 years of research lie behind local artist and historian Judith William’s exhibition, which opened in the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery on Friday, August 26. In an interview with Cortes Currents, three months prior to the Bute Inlet landslide, Williams spoke against the installation of power lines in that area because it is too avalanche prone. The Bute Inlet slide is featured in ‘Water/Colour,’ but the exhibition really focuses on a series of paintings she made using the water she has been collecting in that region since 2010.
Continue reading At the Gallery: Water/Colour from the Bute Inlet landslide
Last month, there was a celebration in honour of three women who returned 47 acres on Read Island to the Homalco First Nation.
“There’s a lovely little sort of swamp on it, the bluffs and you can see the sea, but I live on Quadra and Helen lives in Vancouver and we rarely went out to it,” explained Eileen Sowerby.
Continue reading Returning 47 acres on Read Island to its original owners
It has been three weeks since a federal court ruled that former Federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Bernadette Jordan breached the rights of B.C. salmon farmers to procedural fairness, when she ordered them to phase out their operations in the Discovery Islands by June 2022. Now Cermaq Canada is returning to its site on Raza Island.
Continue reading Cermaq Canada reoccupying Raza Island fish farm
Click here for ‘Federal court rules DFO breached salmon farmers rights to procedural fairness’
National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
West Coast environmental groups and First Nations opposed to salmon farming are urging the federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray to hold the line after a recent court ruling set aside a decision by her predecessor to phase out salmon farming in the Discovery Islands.
The Federal Court ruling found then-fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan contravened the right of procedural fairness owed to fish farm companies when deciding to shut down 19 operations in the waters near Campbell River on eastern Vancouver Island by the end of June.
Continue reading Court ruling doesn’t sink Ottawa’s decision to close Discovery Islands salmon farms, critics say
