Governance and corruption in the race for resources

[eyeball]

"As long as DFO has a mandate to promote salmon farming, there is a risk that it will act in a manner that favours the interests of the salmon farming industry over the health of wild fish stocks."

Story

Meh...

The real story here is that even if salmon farms disappeared tomorrow and sockeye stocks were healthy and abundant DFO would default to the same historical mandate and allocate most of them to billionaires, like Jimmy Pattison and Galen Weston of Canfisco and BC Packers for example. As I've said before a fisherman is to a global economy as a canary is to a coal mine. Instead of invisible gas, what kills fishermen is corruption, which ironically enough is apparently just as invisible to people.

I think it goes without saying that the venal, corrupted and dysfunctional fate of fishing economies and fortunes around the planet's coasts is pretty much what everyone everywhere else on the planet can expect too in the final push for the last of it's resources.

So...meh? I think it's curtains for us canaries but the rest of you might still have a chance to get out.

[Moonlight Graham]

Seems very concerning regarding the DFO conflict of interest. Fish are renewable resources and governments still can't get it right. It's ridiculous. Hard to blame the private companies, we all know they're going to act like greedy self-interested a-holes whenever they're allowed.

[Michael Hardner]

Instead, Cohen says a string of cumulative factors likely played a role, such as contaminants in the Fraser River, development along its shores, and ocean conditions that may have contributed to long-term decline as well.

"Climate change and warming waters present perhaps the most daunting long-term threat to the Fraser River sockeye fishery," Cohen wrote.

Is there reason to believe that Cohen is incorrect here ?

[eyeball]

I've heard the climate change arguments before, from the same government that just as often as not doesn't believe the theory when it suits them or whatever interest du jour they're supporting. What about the damage from development, pollution, logging, agriculture, highway/railway/pipeline construction etc etc that the same authorities responsible for allowing salmon farms didn't prevent?

As for ocean conditions, these can just as unpredictably cause unprecedented abundances. Under what sort of conditions though would you expect to see the largest sockeye run in living memory swim past dozens of fishing communities that have existed and historically thrived on such abundances for generations and not see a single fish be landed amongst them? That happened during Cohen's investigation too.

I heard one of Jimmy's boats caught the largest number of sockeye ever landed in a single set, some 85,000 fish. That's enough to fill 10 of his boats or enough to fill 60 or so of the type of boats I usually fish.

Some 35 million fish swam past us and not a single fish was landed here. Not one. How do you explain that?

Edited November 2, 2012 by eyeball

[Mr.Canada]

Eyeball you can start right away by not fishing anymore. Sell your boat and take up something else if you're so concerned.

[Wilber]

Eyeball you can start right away by not fishing anymore. Sell your boat and take up something else if you're so concerned.

Why should he? Just because you don't give a shit doesn't mean it isn't important.

[jacee]

For what it's worth eyeball, farmed salmon taste like mud.

Wild pacific salmon are the only ones worth eating, for taste and nutrition.

Contamination and corruption by greed.

[eyeball]

Eyeball you can start right away by not fishing anymore. Sell your boat and take up something else if you're so concerned.

Fuck off you mean? That's pretty much what Ottawa told us we should do to.

[eyeball]

For what it's worth eyeball, farmed salmon taste like mud.

I'll take your word for it, I've never eaten one myself.

Wild pacific salmon are the only ones worth eating, for taste and nutrition.

You should try a troll caught Fraser River sockeye fresh from the open ocean where I used to catch them. They make the fish that Jimmy's boats catch in front of the Fraser River taste like gumboots in comparison.

Contamination and corruption by greed.

Yes, we live in a state that's likewise contaminated - by a government who's mismanagement seemingly cannot be contained by any sort of rule of law or sense of justice and democracy until it's way past too late to do anything about it.

I just know some weenie will be along shortly to tell me I'm being ridiculous and that we have these things called elections that are supposed to make all the difference. As I recall they were investigating them for missing numbers or some such thing too.

[jacee]

Yes I think we're living through the excess of greed era, the final industrial assault on the earth that will finally knock the earth off its axis, and the human race off the earth.

The Harper industrial cabal is pushing us quickly to disaster.

[jacee]

Yes I think we're living through the excess of greed era, the final industrial assault on the earth that will finally knock the earth off its axis, and the human race off the earth.

The Harper industrial cabal is pushing us quickly to disaster.

[eyeball]

It's certainly pushing more people up against the wall of insider privilege and entitlement that so many industries apparently need the government to facilitate - to avoid their own demise they'd probably argue.

The evils of redistributing wealth don't even come close to the evils of sequestering opportunity. Exchanging the tragedy of the commons for the tragedy of enclosure is no solution at all.

[Sleipnir]

Reading the title of this thread reminds me of 'tragedy of the commons'.

[eyeball]

Seems very concerning regarding the DFO conflict of interest. Fish are renewable resources and governments still can't get it right. It's ridiculous. Hard to blame the private companies, we all know they're going to act like greedy self-interested a-holes whenever they're allowed.

Fishermen act like greedy self-interested a-holes whenever they're allowed as well. If the government opens a fishery I'll kill as many as I can get my hooks into as fast as I can, the difference is, I'm monitored with black boxes, cameras and even human observers to ensure the commons is protected.

Open the government up to a fishing corporation in private/secret, that is without the same deeply penetrating oversight however and the commons is hooped.

The same holds true with virtually every other resource that governments and corporations control. It's us out here living and working on the ground in the commons that can't seem to get the connection between it's mismanagement and depletion and the growing misfortunes of the many vs the growing fortunes of the few.

Hey look, there goes another flock of dead and dying canaries.

[Fletch 27]

We can only subsidize industries like the wooden buggy manufacturers and Oil-Lanter suppliers for so long.. This is simply a recurance of what happened to the Cod fishery..

[Canuckistani]

We can only subsidize industries like the wooden buggy manufacturers and Oil-Lanter suppliers for so long.. This is simply a recurance of what happened to the Cod fishery..

Very poor analogy. Unlike buggies, there's an ongoing demand for fish. We just need to protect the resource properly.

I think the Cohen commission is a whitewash. Blames the DFO for not doing their job, but doesn't say what their job is. Did they fail to protect salmon spawning grounds. Fail to limit overfishing, what? If there's really no clear reason for the lack of fish, then the DFO couldn't have done much about it. I do think it's habitat destruction and overfishing.

[Wilber]

We can only subsidize industries like the wooden buggy manufacturers and Oil-Lanter suppliers for so long.. This is simply a recurrence of what happened to the Cod fishery..

It's more than just fish. Wild salmon are the heart of the west coast ecosystem. Dozens of other species depend on them for survival. I think the Cohen commission is a tragedy. Here was a real chance to do something positive but we got mostly a bunch of waffling that will ensure nothing gets done for a few more years while the situation just gets worse. Salmon are the canary for the area's whales, seals, bears, eagles etc. You name it.. A real disappointment IMO.