B.C. Natives Declare War on Fish Farms

VICTORIA (CP) -- Aboriginals living along British Columbia's fjord- split central coast are prepared to risk arrest in what they are calling a war against fish farms.

The aboriginals, joined by environmental groups and commercial fishermen, said fish farms will threaten their way of life and they vow to fight any expansion into their traditional lands.

"We've declared war on the fish farming industry," said Ed Newman, a Heiltsuk Nation aboriginal elder from Bella Bella, about 800 kilometres northwest of Vancouver.

"They might have to throw a lot of us in jail, but we don't care. We have to protect our way of life."

Aboriginals, environmentalists and some scientists say farmed salmon promote disease among wild fish stocks and their holding pens pollute nearby waters.

One man was arrested Wednesday at Ocean Falls -- the site of an abandoned pulp mill town -- after 14 boats carrying 60 protesters arrived at the site of a proposed $15 million Atlantic salmon hatchery.

The wood footings holding freshly poured concrete at the hatchery were dismantled, allowing the concrete to flow freely.

Omega Salmon Group Ltd., which operates fish farms and a processing plant on northern Vancouver Island, is constructing the hatchery at Ocean Falls, about 20 kilometres east of Bella Bella.

Aboriginals and environmental groups believe the hatchery will end up supplying future fish farms on the central coast, which stretches for hundreds of kilometres and includes the historic communities of Bella Bella and Bella Coola.

But Kjell Aasen, Omega's Ocean Falls hatchery manager, said the company has no expansion plans after the hatchery project.

"We have written to the Heiltsuk that we have no plans for fish farms in the area," he said.

Aasen said the Heiltsuk have rejected company attempts to reach an agreement on the Ocean Falls hatchery.

"We think we could work with the Heiltsuk in a beneficial way," he said. "It could be great for the area in an economic way."

Aasen said Omega has reached agreements to operate fish farms with aboriginals on Vancouver Island and the north coast.

Last September, B.C.'s Liberal government lifted a moratorium on fish farm expansions that had been in place since 1995.

"We don't want the central coast to become the garbage dump for the Atlantic salmon farming industry," Newman said. "This territory is our food basket. We live off the sea and we are trying to protect our way of life."

Lawrence Pootlass, the head chief of Bella Coola's Nuxalk Nation, said more protests can be expected at the Ocean Falls hatchery.

"I can't open myself up and tell everybody what we are going to do, but we are not going to quit until they are out of our territory" said Pootlass, who is also known by his aboriginal name, Nuximlayc.

Pootlass said he was jailed for one month in the late 1990s when Bella Coola aboriginals protested logging activities in an area that became known to environmentalists as the Great Bear Rainforest.

© Copyright 2002 Canadian Press

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