Category Archives: Rivers & Oceans

Indigenous Nations, Rivers & Oceans

‘We’ll do it ourselves’: Weary of waiting on Ottawa, First Nation sets up marine protected area

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A First Nation in B.C. celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day by taking action where the federal government has not by establishing a new marine protected area in the Great Bear Coast. 

Kitasoo Xai’xais First Nation (KXFN) elected Chief Doug Neasloss and the nation’s hereditary chiefs formally and unilaterally announced the Gitdisdzu Lugyeks (Kitasu Bay) Marine Protected Area (MPA), a 33.5-square-kilometre ocean protection zone in their traditional territories near Laredo Sound, 500 kilometres north of Vancouver.

Continue reading ‘We’ll do it ourselves’: Weary of waiting on Ottawa, First Nation sets up marine protected area →
Rivers & Oceans

‘We are salmon people’: First Nation leaders in B.C. demand audience with fisheries minister

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Editor’s note: The Klahoose, Homalco and Tla’amin First Nations are among the 102 First Nations demanding that fish farms be moved onto land.

It’s been nearly five years since Tribal Chief Tyrone McNeil has pulled salmon from the Fraser River and strung fish over wooden racks to dry in the wind, preserving food for his family and his people’s ancestral traditions. 

He and other First Nations leaders and communities in B.C. dependent on salmon are grieving the ongoing disappearance of the fish that defines them. And they are angry Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) continues to deny their constitutional right of first access to fish, said McNeil, president of Stó꞉lō Tribal Council. 

Continue reading ‘We are salmon people’: First Nation leaders in B.C. demand audience with fisheries minister →
Rivers & Oceans

West Coast kelp is in hot water, but scientific insights may help save our underwater rainforests

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

B.C.’s critical kelp forests withered as climate change has triggered marine heat waves along the entire West Coast in recent years. 

But exceptions to the rule may provide insights helpful to saving and restoring our underwater forests, said Samuel Starko, a University of Victoria researcher.

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Rivers & Oceans

Waiting for DFO to decide the fate of open-net pen fish farms

Sometime in the next three weeks, Canada’s Minister of Fisheries, Joyce Murray, will decide whether the licenses for 79 fish farms will be renewed. 

“I heard a rumour that the minister laid out her options or her ideas to cabinet and cabinet has the plans right now. They’re  figuring out what to do. We can expect an announcement quite shortly on the plan around the transition of farms out of British Columbia and also the licensing decision,” said Stan Proboszcz, senior scientist with the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.

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Rivers & Oceans

Powell River Salmon Society: C’mon DFO – Fund us!

qathet Living, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Powell River Salmon Society has recieved zero increase in funding from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the federal government over the past 40 years. 

With the federal announcement of the $647.1 million investment towards saving Pacific wild salmon last year, the Powell River Salmon Society had heard nothing about receiving any of this, despite North Island-Powell River MP Rachel Blaney writing a letter to the Department of Fisheries Oceans (DFO) minister last July. After no response to the letter, Rachel and the Salmon Society worked together to create a petition.

Continue reading Powell River Salmon Society: C’mon DFO – Fund us! →