Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 
From: David Coon <ccnbcoon@nb.aibn.com> 

The Management of Fisheries on
Canada's Atlantic Coast
Comments on DFO's Discussion Paper
on Policy Direction and Principles

Submitted by David Coon, Policy Director, Conservation Council of New Brunswick
Public Session, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
March 12, 2001

Context

The Conservation Council always appreciates the opportunity to participate
in the creation of public policy, in this case; fisheries policy. As a
public interest organization we have been actively engaged in promoting
public policies which we believe would advance the conservation and
restoration of our marine ecosystems since 1990. However, it was only
following the collapse of the northern cod, that we turned our attention to
public policy related specifically to fisheries management.
In 1997, following a series of community meetings in the fishing
communities of southwestern New Brunswick we published a proposal for
community-based ecological fisheries management in a publication entitled
"Beyond Crisis in the Fisheries". This preliminary effort to describe a
new approach to fisheries management that is ecologically- and
community-based was followed by a joint effort with the Bay of Fundy Marine
Resource Centre in collaboration with the Bay of Fundy Fisheries Council to
engage Fundy-based fishermen's organizations in developing management
principles for such an approach. The results of this effort were published
in 2000 and the principles were adopted by the Bay of Fundy Fisheries
Council in 2001. Most recently as a member of the steering committee for
the newly formed Atlantic Movement for Community-Based Management,
principles for community management have been further developed.

Introduction

The Conservation Council's approach to public policy concerning
fisheries management recognizes two overriding influences in our economy
and society: first, the primacy of healthy fully functioning marine and
coastal ecosystems as the foundation for resource health and use; and
second, the primacy of human communities as the foundation for productive
and healthy societies. 

We believe that working together, ecology and community provide a powerful
context for a new paradigm for fisheries management. However, standing
alone, each one will contribute only a partial solution. An ecological
solution without an economic and social solution, and vice versa, ignores
the intricate interdependencies of our marine ecosystems and
fisheries-dependent communities which have evolved in the Maritimes since
the beginning of human settlement.

The overarching comment we wish to make about the discussion document is
that it indeed ignores theses intricate linkages. It proposes an
ecological approach to conservation, which represents an important step
forward, but then advocates a model of government-industry co-management
where fisheries-dependent communities are relegated to the category of
"other interests" which include conservation groups, academics and the
general public. Such approach theoretically might restore and sustain fish
stock, but could leave our coastal communities to decay.
The Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review is intended to develop public policy
in four interrelated areas, conservation, economic and social viability,
access and allocations, and governance. This brief will look at each of
these areas of public policy in turn.

Conservation

The Conservation Council supports the suggestion that conservation be
defined as sustainable use that safeguards ecological processes and genetic
diversity for present and future generations. 

This represents a more realistic definition then what has been used in
the past, recognizing that fisheries cannot be simply managed on a
species-by-species basis, as the health of fish stocks depends on healthy
functioning ecosystems, and the ecological processes, habitats, and
biological diversity that they encompass.
However, conservation alone cannot be the top priority in decisions
affecting the fisheries when there is a pressing need for restoration of
fish stocks, habitats, and ecological processes. As a first principle for
fisheries management, the Conservation Council advocates the restoration
and conservation of the ecological integrity of our marine ecosystems and
fisheries. In other words, fisheries must be managed to restore marine
systems which have already been damaged, in addition to conserving those
which have not. Furthermore, to be effective, a new conservation-based
management regime must combine new directions for fish harvesting with
comprehensive coastal zone management to prevent damage to marine
ecosystems by non-fishing activities - and fisheries-dependent communities
should have the necessary authority to manage these at the local level.
With respect to the conservation ethic and stewardship that DFO wishes to
promote, fishermen are motivated to be good stewards in the context of
their faith, their families, and their communities. Community-based
management is based on ethical and spiritual values. The industry-based
co-management proposed in the discussion paper will perpetuate a fishery
based on materialistic values.
Similarly, the stated interest in adopting better ways to use indigenous
and local knowledge in fisheries management can best be accommodated
through community-based management it can be readily integrated into
management decision-making. 
My colleague Inka Milewski, the current President of the Conservation
Council, will be more fully addressing the conservation section of the
discussion paper at an upcoming hearing in Moncton. In particular, she
will raise a number of issues around how to best operationalize
conservation and, we would add, restoration objectives.


Economic and Social Viability

• The aim of economic activity must be to support communities and maintain
the quality of our lives;

• Our resources must be used primarily to sustain reasonable livelihoods,
not to amass profits;

• Resource use must contribute to our living full and abundant lives that
are sustainable socially, spiritually, economically, and environmentally.

The Conservation Council believes that human communities are the
foundation of a healthy productive society.

It is difficult to divorce questions of economic and social viability from
the questions of community access and allocation. However, as the
discussion paper points out, DFO can create a policy framework that helps
the fishery support particular economic and social goals. In the case of
the discussion paper, it proposes that these be the optimal contribution to
the Canadian economy, and to the economic viability and self-reliance of
individual fishing enterprises. The Conservation Council suggests that the
economic viability and self-reliance of individual fishing businesses is
not a public concern, and should not be the concern of DFO. Rather the
viability and self-reliance of our coastal communities is of significant
public concern. DFO's policy framework should contribute to the
sustainability of our coastal communities. 
Individual business ventures succeed or fail, all other things being equal
(such as equitable access to the fisheries resources and capital), on the
knowledge, skills and acumen of the enterprise owner. Establishing public
policy to ensure the viability and self-reliance for individual businesses
and to optimize their contribution to the Canadian economy, may very well
be to the detriment to coastal fishing communities and their members.
Decisions on how to balance economic and social objectives for fisheries
management must be made through transparent, democratic, publicly
accountable processes at the community level, not by multistakeholder
committees. All members of communities have a shared interest in the use
of the resources around them. The values, goals, and aspirations of all
people in communities must be central to decisions regarding the use, and
responsible stewardship, of resources. 
As for the national economy, the most positive contribution the fisheries
can make is to support healthy vibrant coastal communities. Of course, it
is also reasonable for Canadian society to receive economic rent for the
use of public fisheries resources. However, we advocate that this not be
obtained by burdening licences with high fees, but simply charge royalites
on the amount of fish and shellfish landed. This would be far more
equitable than the current apporach, as those who benefit the most from
harvesting this public resource would pay the higher share of royalites.


Access and Allocations

Priority of access to the common fishery resource should be allocated to
those communities most dependent on it for their economic, social and
cultural well-being, in ways which respect aboriginal and treaty rights.

The Conservation Council holds that it is communities which should hold
the opportunity to use fisheries resources, not individual enterprises.
Since fishing communities live or die by the ability of their members to
fish, it is the community that should have the priority of access to fish
stocks. It is the community that should be guaranteed collective access to
the resource over and above other claims on it, other than those flowing
from aboriginal rights and treaties (much as the 1760-1761 treaties and the
Canadian constitution guarantee First Nation communities on the east coast
collective access to the fisheries).
By assigning access to the resource to fisheries-dependent communities,
rather than to individuals or companies, we do not intend in any way that
these rights should infringe on inherent aboriginal rights to fish. It is
incumbent on native and non-native communities to collaboratively develop
the parameters within which they both exercise their access rights.
Under a community access arrangement, the trusteeship of the resource and
the overall stewardship of the marine environment on which it depends rests
with the community, not the fishing industry. In this way, Canadians would
have a high level of assurance that the resource will serve the public
interest, not only for current generations, but far into the future. This
arrangement will require new institutions to assert and protect the
community's interest in the fishery. These will be addressed under the
governance section of the brief.
We wish to stress that allocating access rights to geographic communities
differs fundamentally from assigning such rights to individuals or private
enterprises through enterprise allocations or individual transferable
quotas. In the latter, public resources are given over to private
interests for their own exclusive access. This removes resources, and the
wealth they represent, from the public domain, limiting access to them to
the owner's willingness to sell that access and the buyer's ability to pay
what the owner asks. This is unacceptable for a public resource which
should represent common wealth.
The community-based model we advocate represents a transfer of wealth from
the public domain at the federal level to a more local public domain.
Public representatives, in both cases, must be accountable to citizens for
the manner in which that wealth is invested, and there is an obligation for
current generations to ensure that future generations have the same
opportunity to benefit from those public resources.
The advantage of allocating these rights of access to the local level is
to put responsibility for the resource at a level much more directly
dependent and therefore vested in its long-term health. It also removes
the resource from the federal negotiating tables where access to fish can
be a bargaining chip in deals that do not involve those who have the most
at stake. It will be argued that fishing enterprises are directly
dependent on the resource and have a vested interest in the long-term
health of the resource, but there is nothing necessarily long-term about a
fishing enterprise, nor in the case of corporate enterprises are they
dependent on any particular resource, or publicly accountable.
In the case of aboriginal communities, they already have such access
rights as affirmed by the Supreme Court and protected in the constitution.
DFO has no role in providing access to aboriginal communities. This they
have. According to the Supreme Court, DFO's role here is restricted to
limiting access to a fishery in the event that there is some pressing and
substantial public purpose in doing so. However, even then, there must be
consultation with the aboriginal community concerned. Limitations must go
no further than is required. The concerns and proposals of the aboriginal
community must be taken into account, and the end result may be the
adoption of different techniques of conservation and management by that
aboriginal community in the exercise of their treaty fishery.
Under the current and proposed system, fishermen obtain access to the
fishery by holding a personal fishing licence, as well as licences for each
specific species they wish to fish, assuming they can afford to buy them.
While DFO can revoke a licences, they are bought and sold as if they were
private property. Under the system proposed here, all fishing licences
would be held in trust by the local fisheries management institution. They
would not be the personal property of any individual and therefore would
have no economic value in and of themselves. Instead they would be issued
on a lifetime lease basis that would be inheritable by children. If a
licence becomes inactive, it would revert to the local fisheries management
institution, which would re-issue it to a new entrant, hold it or retire it
depending on conservation considerations.
The primary means of limiting access to the fisheries, if required, would
be through the number of licences issues locally. Once licensed, fishermen
would have access to whatever local fisheries they choose by permit. In
the face of a declining fishery, all fishermen would be equally limited by
awarding permits to that fishery through a lottery or some other similar
mechanism.
For quota-based fisheries, quota would be held in trust at the local
community level in a similar manner to the licences. Such a trust could
hold quota purchased from current ITQ holders, but not sell or lease it
outside of the community's jurisdiction.
The concept of a trust is built around the notion of perpetuity and
equity: that the resource being held in trust will be equally accessible to
all, both in this generation and those to follow. By making licences and
quotas, in effect, community "property" rather than private property, the
benefits from the fisheries resource are more equitably distributed and the
well-being of the community is maximized. 

Governance

Management of fisheries should be place in public hands at the community
level, not privatized to individual and enterprise interests as the
discussion paper proposes.

The Conservation Council can in no way support the government-industry
co-management model proposed for managing a public resource. This already
exists for the public forest resources and has led to ecological decline,
resource depletion, and high unemployment rates in forestry-dependent
communities.
Beyond just priority of access, decision-making on fisheries management
must reside with new community and regional institutions which protect the
public interest and the livelihoods of coastal residents. Fishermen's
associations must play a central role in the development and work of these
institutions, so that fishermen fully participate in managing their
fisheries in the context of their communities.
The Conservation Council proposes three levels of institutions, nested one
in the other, to oversee fishing, conservation, and habitat protection.
These would include Community Fisheries Boards at the community level as
defined by local fishermen's associations, a Bioregionl Fisheries Board at
the larger ecosystem level, and an Offshore Fisheries Board for the
offshore. The Community Fisheries Boards from a bioregion would constitute
the Bioregional Board. 
For example, a Bay of  Fundy Regional Management Board might be
constituted by the Community Management Boards from southwestern New
Brunswick, Grand Manan, the Upper Bay area of New Brunswick, the Upper Bay
area of Nova Scotia, Digby County, and Yarmouth County. Representatives
from this and other bioregional boards might then sit on a Scotia-Fundy
offshore board, along with fleet and DFO representatives. 
The Boards would serve as trusts to hold and oversee management of
fisheries resources within a defined geographic area. They would operate
within a set of legally-mandated principles that would define their
trusteeships, provided for in signed agreements with DFO.
The rules for managing fishing effort would be developed by fishermen
themselves through their associations, which would constitute a fisheries
management council under the auspices of the fisheries boards. These
councils would be accountable to their publicly constituted management
boards for the mandate of fish stock conservation and habitat protection as
these relate to fishing activity.
Besides managing fishing activity, the management boards would have a role
in determining what kind of development is permitted in their respective
coastal zones and controlling activity not related to fishing activity but
which could have an impact on marine ecological processes and habitat. In
order for development to proceed within the coastal zone, a proponent would
have to get approval from the Community Fisheries Management Board, as well
as meet any additional provincial or federal requirements, much as
proponents must obtain municipal approvals for development within
municipalities.
The Atlantic Movement for Community-Based Management has developed a
number of principles which are applicable to fisheries management
governance. These include:

• All members of communities have a shared interest in the use of the
resources around them. The values, goals, and aspirations of all people in
communities must be central to decisions regarding the use, and responsible
stewardship, of resources;

• Communities have an obligation to work together to ensure the region's
resources are used and managed in a sustainable manner;

• Inclusive community participation in decision-making is essential to the
existence of healthy and sustainable communities.

The proposals outlined in the discussion document concerning governance
run contrary to all three of these principles.

Conclusion

The proposals contained in the DFO discussion document on policy direction
and principles are limited in their ability to contribute to a future of
abundant fish stocks and healthy seas by the commitment to privatize
management decision-making through government-industry co-management, and
the acceptance of corporatist structures and stakeholder politics. 
If public wealth represented by public fisheries resources are to serve
the public good, then their management must made through democratic
processes. This discussion document proposes to abandon an semblance of
democratic decision-making to the private sector. The Conservation
Council's alternative would increase the transparency, accountability and
democracy of the fisheries management process by vesting it in locally
controlled, democratically run, and publicly accountable institutions.



David Coon
Policy Director
Conservation Council of New Brunswick
180 St. John Street
Fredericton, New Brunswick
E3B 4A9
(506) 458-8747
(506) 466-2911
e-mail: ccnbcoon@nb.aibn.com 
website: www.web.net/~ccnb 
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