Aboriginal Fishing Rights and Salmon Management in British Columbia: Matching Historical Justice with the Public Interest

Abstract

At the time of European contact, Aboriginal peoples inhabiting the Fraser and Skeena watersheds in what is now British Columbia pursued river fisheries on spawning runs of salmon, for both domestic use and trade. In support of a salmon canning industry established in the 1870s, the Canadian government severely restricted Native river fisheries, limiting them to fish for household needs, and prohibiting the use of their most productive gears, such as weirs and traps. This contributed to the impoverishment of Aboriginal communities, with many descending into social dissolution and despair. Recent decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada have affirmed the constitutionally protected priority rights of Aboriginal peoples to fisheries integral to their culture at the time of European contact. An Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy, implemented in June 1992 in response to Supreme Court edicts, has modestly increased salmon available to some river tribes and has allowed parts of the catch to be sold. This has engendered strong opposition from commercial fishing interests, fearful of a decline in their catches. It has also added to current public concerns regarding alarming declines in some salmon stocks, particularly those of interest to recreational fishers. This chapter proposes a salmon management strategy for the dual purpose of strengthening the economies of First Nation river communities and substantially increasing the production of salmon from the Fraser and Skeena watersheds for the benefit of all stakeholders. This would involve an additional transfer of a modest share of the salmon harvest from the mixed-stock commercial sea fisheries to the Aboriginal river fisheries. The latter would be restructured to use selective fishing gears and terminal fisheries to improve stock-specific spawning escapements significantly. Spawning habitat restoration and improvement, undertaken by local Aboriginal communities, would further assist stock recovery. The objective would be to greatly increase sustainable salmon harvests, by rebuilding and enhancing weak stocks and allowing fuller utilization of surplus production from strong stocks. A program of experimental fisheries to develop and test appropriate gears and fishing techniques is proposed, in conjunction with the development of management models to establish optimum escapement targets, fishing locations, and harvest allocations. These would balance biological and economic considerations and observe the need for an equitable distribution of benefits in which all stakeholder groups would participate.