1/09 Stop License Stacking and Save the Salmon

[The.Greenbase@green2.greenpeace.org]

           STOP LICENSE STACKING AND SAVE THE SALMON, 
                         SAYS GREENPEACE
 
Vancouver, January 9, 1996: Greenpeace today condemned Federal
Fisheries Minister Fred Mifflin's decision to lift the
moratorium on the stacking of salmon licenses in the Pacific
salmon fishing fleet, saying the decision flies in the face of
stock conservation.  
"It's the east coast agenda all over again," said Catherine
Stewart, Greenpeace Fisheries campaigner. "Take the fish from
the in-shore fleet, give them to the corporate big boats and
watch the companies destroy the stocks."
 
Mifflin's plan to "rationalize" the salmon fleet divides the
coast into three areas for the small boats, two for the large
salmon seiners. It requires fishermen to purchase one license
for each area, and allows more than one license to be "stacked"
on to a single vessel. Greenpeace and most fishermen believe the
small boat operators will either be forced into carrying huge
debt loads or driven out of the fishery entirely.
 
Stewart said that while Mifflin's plan reduces the total number
of vessels in the fleet, it fails to effectively reduce overall
catching capacity, which is desperately needed to relieve the
pressure on the stocks.
 
"As Ambassador John Fraser observed in his 1994 report on the
salmon fishery, the seiners are so devastatingly efficient that
one more 12 hour opening could have destroyed the Fraser river
sockeye runs." said Stewart. "These are the boats Fred Mifflin
plans to favour."
 
A significant percentage of the seiners are already controlled
or owned outright by Galen Weston's B.C. Packers Ltd.. And now,
with over 140 salmon runs in danger of extinction in B.C.,
Weston is hedging his bets. The corporation's reliance on the
survival of wild salmon stocks has declined as their investment
in fish farms rises. BC Packers has invested millions in salmon
farms in Canada and Chile to maintain the supply of fish to
Weston's processing operations and supermarkets. The company is
now far less dependent on, or committed to, the survival of wild
runs.
 
Greenpeace is demanding the total cancellation of license
stacking, which favours companies like Weston's, a significant

reduction in the catching capacity of the seine fleet and an
open, transparent process to determine a viable future for
B.C.'s salmon stocks.  
For more information contact: 
Catherine Stewart
Greenpeace Fisheries Campaign
604-253-7701 ext. 208
cell: 604-313-0159

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