Submitter: Andrea Carol Anderson

Community: Heriot Bay

Date Submitted: October 4, 2023

Summary:

My vision is that this commission will support and require the DFO to honour the concept of sustainability and give DFO workers the permission and authority they need to act to protect ecosystems and fish. Damaging practices and cover-ups by open- net farms need to be disallowed, and farms required to move to closed containment. Sensible harvesting is well-addressed in Chapter 5 of “Assu of Cape Mudge: Recollections of a Coastal Indian Chief” by Harry Assu and Joy Inglis.



I wish I could be in Vancouver on the 25th to support Justice Cohen and you all in the opening of the Inquiry. I think this is a large, difficult and extremely-important undertaking. Thank you for being there.

Submission:

1. My vision is that Our survival is tied in with the sustainability and survival of the Fraser sockeye. What is not good in the ocean for them is not good for us either. We celebrate this year’s wondrous run of sockeye – and we continue to try to understand the warning losses of the past years. My vision is that this Commission Inquiry will support and require the DFO to actually honour the concept of Sustainability, and will give the on-the-ground (actually on-the-rivers-and-ocean) DFO workers the permission(!) and authority they need to act to protect the ecosystems and the wild fish.



2. What is required to secure the future of the Fraser sockeye is our genuine human effort to protect (and allow to flourish) their habitat. This is what we need the DFO to vow to protect, not the market share prices of the fish farms.



3. Habitat issues and problems that we can actually observe here on the coast, are those created by fish feedlot practices – and the allowed coverup of those practices and the habitat damage caused. Mitigation would be possible if the Province and/or the DFO would work on behalf of the salmon, the environment, and we salmon people. A first step would be to require open-net fish-farms to move to closed containment.



4. Sensible, effective harvesting is well addressed (and it’s a good read) by a long-time fisherman in “Assu of Cape Mudge: Recollections of a Coastal Indian Chief” by Harry Assu with Joy Inglis. UBC Press, 1989. See Chapter 5: “My Life in the Fishing Business.” Stories include how they’ve tried to call Fisheries to help control people breaking the law, and, exactly to the point, what happened in 1985, the then-greatest year of sockeye return since 1913. (I would be glad to get you a copy of this if you do not already have it.)



5. Recovery of the Fraser sockeye is something we coast people continue to care about, pay attention to, and try to participate in. All. The. Time. The DFO needs direction and help. From you of course, but we are also offering it, have all along, and would be good allies.