We should celebrate the news that the Minister of the Department of Fisheries, Bernadette Jordan , has had the strength to decide to remove fish farms , i.e. not renewing their permits, out of the discovery islands , therefore allowing the Fraser River salmon smolt to enter the oceans without the sources of sea lice to prey on them.
She has earned the title Honourable, in that she has listened to the science, the Indigenous leaders and the people of the west coast , and turned the direction of the DFO who were backing the open net Atlantic salmon fish farms from the beginning in the 80s.
Her courage to take this decision is I think unprecedented in the government of our natural resources. I hope she goes on to remedy the ocean's over-fishing and wasteful and destructive practices going on now.
I hope other ministers will follow her example and do their best to protect our forests and waterways, to do what is right by the planet and not what is making temporary wealth.
Chris Simpson
Mackenzie
