Backgrounder: Establishing a Salmon Aquaculture Forum in BC

In January 2003, the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (PFRCC) released a consultants' background paper that examined the assumptions and scientific information supporting the divergent arguments about salmon aquaculture. It was meant to contribute towards better public understanding about the actual and potential impacts of salmon aquaculture on wild salmon. Shortly afterwards, also in January 2003, The PFRCC issued an advisory entitled Wild Salmon and Aquaculture where it first proposed the creation of a Salmon Aquaculture Forum to begin a process of building public trust about the future direction of the industry and management of environmental issues. In April 2003, the governments of Canada and British Columbia decided to proceed with the establishment of a jointly sponsored Salmon Aquaculture Forum. The Honourable Stan Hagen on behalf of British Columbia and the Honourable Robert Thibault acting for Fisheries and Oceans Canada committed their governments to an unprecedented joint effort to improve the dialogue and seek constructive solutions to controversies associated with salmon aquaculture. The two ministers asked the Honourable John A. Fraser, Chair of the PFRCC, to investigate options and to recommend to them how the Forum should be structured, organized and implemented. The PFRCC then produced today's discussion paper on practices and findings and the briefing note to ministers on the Forum. The briefing note to ministers provides the specific proposals for the organizational architecture, membership, procedures and other key elements for the formation and activities of the Forum. This discussion paper on practices and findings provides information that was requested by federal and provincial ministers for their joint establishment and implementation of a Salmon Aquaculture Forum. Ministers asked for information to serve as a basis for structuring the new organization as well as ways to make it effective in bringing stakeholders together and determining common ground in which environmental, social and commercial interests could be acknowledged and accommodated. The ministers recognized that the Salmon Aquaculture Forum would have to be established with considerable care to ensure that its outcomes would be effective and credible. The Forum would have to serve the interests of the environmental, First Nations and industry stakeholders, and involve governments and the public in the process of determining where environmental and commercial interests could be acknowledged and accommodated. In the mandate assigned to Mr. Fraser, the discussion paper was to relate the practices of advisory groups dealing with resource issues, as well as outline the findings of an extensive set of interviews, meetings and discussions held across British Columbia. Those discussions were held with groups and individuals representing the array of interests and perspectives in salmon aquaculture. They included representatives of environmental organizations, industry, First Nations, municipal governments, federal and provincial departments and agencies, the fisheries sector, universities, labour, community organizations, and industry and professional associations. Several individual citizens also participated in discussions to provide additional views and contribute their ideas. Meetings were held throughout the months of May, June and July, and included travel across Vancouver Island and to Prince Rupert to accommodate requests for meetings in several communities. Considerable research was carried out to identify the best practices of organizations with similar goals and challenges as the proposed Salmon Aquaculture Forum, with particular attention to advisory and consensus-building groups in Canada and other countries. In addition, the role of science and its potential contribution to conflict resolution in resource issues were investigated.