Nuxalk First Nation Attacks Corporate Fish Farm
Corporate Media Report
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Natives, environmentalist and commercial fishermen stormed the construction
site for an Atlantic salmon hatchery on B.C.'s (Canada) central coast and
tore it apart yesterday.
Native leaders likened introducing Atlantic salmon and parasites and
diseases spread by fish farms to the arrival of the first traders who
spread smallpox up and down the coast killing 90 per cent of the native
people in some villages.
"Enough is enough," said Chief Nuximlayc of the Nuxalk First Nation of
Bella Coola. "It is like when smallpox came into the valley. It killed our
people. Now they want to do the same to the salmon."
The 60 protesters who arrived by boat from the neighboring communities tore
open a gate to the Omega fish hatchery in Ocean Falls and ripped down the
wooden forms for newly poured concrete.
"We don't want the fish hatchery. We don't want the fish farms. We mean
it," said Clement Lam 35, of the Forest Action Network, who was arrested
for ripping down the form. "Our ultimate goal is drive all the fish farms
out of the British Columbia coast."
The 20 fish farms operating in the Broughton Archipelago near Alert Bay are
being blamed for destroying the pink salmon runs in the area.
Fewer than 150,000 of the more than 3.6 million pink salmon that were
expected actually returned this year.
A scientific study of the disaster suggests the juvenile salmon were killed
off by bloodsucking sea lice they picked up on the way past the salmon farms.
Natives raised the alarm even before the fish failed to return.
Fishermen were finding young pink salmon covered in the parasites near the
fish farms and last month demanded the shutdown of all the fish farms in
the area -- to no avail.
The B.C. Salmon Farmers' Association said it would cooperate with a
scientific study into the problem.
The association would not comment on yesterday's protest and Omega
officials could not be reached.
Link: http://www.geocities.com/insurrectionary_anarchists
