Activists, salmon farmers work together
Groups co-operate on pilot project using closed-containment system
Clare Backman and Jennifer Lash
February 4, 2010
Special to The Times Colonist
One has to be forward thinking, open-minded and innovative to develop truly sustainable ways of managing natural resources and people's interaction with nature.
This is true for most everything we do in the world and it's also true when it comes to salmon farming.
In the midst of the debate over salmon farming on British Columbia's coast, the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, which includes the Living Oceans Society, David Suzuki Foundation, Watershed Watch, T. Buck Suzuki Foundation, Georgia Strait Alliance and Marine Harvest Canada, a division of the largest salmon farming company in the world, have been working together to find a path forward.
Together the alliance and Marine Harvest decided to focus efforts in two important areas:
First, to test the environmental and economic sustainability of closed containment technology.
Second, to use improved farm and area-based management to reduce the likelihood that farmed salmon would infect out-migrating juvenile salmon with sea lice in the Broughton Archipelago.
To this end, Marine Harvest plans to design and secure funding for a commercial-scale closed-containment pilot project early in 2010.
This project will be carried out in association with the alliance.
A detailed work plan for the project is under development, including timelines for design, technical due diligence and finalizing an economic model to evaluate the sustainability performance of closed containment technology.
The work plan is scheduled for completion the end of March with a public announcement to follow shortly thereafter.
Read the full story in The Times Colonist
Posted February 4th, 2010
