1. DFO's site on SRKW PDF material is: https://fisheriesandoceanscanada.app.box.com/s/0vp0qrlitw3lu9dj8zn061rpf4bw9251.
This is the DFO plan for dealing with SRKW and salmon, the May 10, 2019 PDF: https://fisheriesandoceanscanada.app.box.com/s/0vp0qrlitw3lu9dj8zn061rpf4bw9251/file/455774025947.
The main items are:
• Five Technical Working Groups (TWGs) were established to provide advice
on immediate and longer-term recovery measures:
For example, here is the DFO plan for fisheries:
"Subject: FN0395-COMMERCIAL, RECREATIONAL and ABORIGINAL - Salmon -
Fraser Chinook 2019 Management Measures - Vancouver Island, Fraser Interior
and North Coast, and Coast-wide Recreational Annual Aggregates - Amendment
to FN0377."
You can get updates by email. Go here to view or subscribe to fisheries notices:
http://notices.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fns-sap/index-eng.cfm.
***
Now, moving to the next item of how to get involved in bringing back wild salmon, as in get some funding: 2. This is DFO's funding link for getting money for freshwater habitat restoration projects, etc.: http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/initiatives/fish-fund-bc-fonds-peche-cb/apply-demande-page01-eng.html.
Read the criteria. They will not result in money being well spent. I pointed out to Wilkinson that because it focuses on innovation and new technology, it is not addressing the most important issue with salmon which is straight forward freshwater habitat restoration. This is about putting on gumboots and getting in a river to fix it, and for business donation of heavy equipment where needed. It is also for using the PSF for money leveraging, and for the WSAC, as a provincial body, to make a made in BC answer.
See this for my comments: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/04/salmon-restoration-and-innovation-fund.html.
The point is that the criteria are worded in such a way that the major item, freshwater habitat restoration for wild BC salmon, is not going to receive the money it should.
DFO's west coast Regional Director, Cheryl Webb, Ecosystems Management, Pacific Region had this to say to me: I have put her letter on this link: https://onfishingdcreid.blogspot.com/2019/05/cheryl-webb-note-to-dcr-wild-bc-salmon.html , which is the post just before this post.
Here are some of her weasel words:
"Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) understands the
importance of the fishery resource to all who depend on it for their
sustenance, livelihood, and recreation. DFO works to protect
and conserve marine and freshwater ecosystems and the living resources they
support."
These words ring hollow to anyone who lives in BC, so are they only written to sound good to DFO staff in Ottawa?
The words ring hollow because DFO has been managing SRKWs and wild BC salmon into extinction for the past 50 years. Here is my first post on this issue: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/05/dfo-salmon-and-killer-whales.html. The fundamentals of this issue are: $$ for freshwater habitat restoration and netpens of chinook to put SRKW food in the water as soon as possible. This post has been viewed 10,000 times.
Cheryl Webb goes on:
"This fund is a critical collaboration for Canada and
British Columbia, as BC’s land- and water-use management responsibilities have
a great impact on fish stocks."
This is the reason why, when I contact the BC govt or WSAC - the wild salmon advisory council - I tell them that with their structure being brought into existence for this issue, finally gives BC the complete machinery it needs to move on from DFO and do something that actually saves BC salmon - and saves them from DFO in the far oft land of Ottawa, where they should stay. Take their money given to the Pacific Salmon Foundation and solve the problem - a made in BC solution as John Horgan might say.
Cheryl goes on:
"SEP’s Resource Restoration Unit supports a multitude of
partnerships and projects that contribute to salmon habitat restoration. And the Coastal Restoration Fund has provided over $18.6 million to
fund restoration projects in freshwater, estuarine, and marine habitats in
British Columbia."
The way the whole paragraph reads is that the Salmon Enhancement Program has a large part that is about habitat restoration; however, the key weasel word is: And, the paragraph says SEP does habitat restoration, so one assumes that the Coastal Restoration Fund is a SEP program. But go and look at it, as it is not: http://dfo-mpo.gc.ca/oceans/crf-frc/apply-presenter/page-01-eng.html.
The CRF is an existing program, and is not a SEP program - which is primarily about putting salmon fry in the water. It is only the weasel word And that has a normal human being assuming the SEP, who we trust, has the money. Further, the program funding is over for this year, and is most about Indigenous, and the other ocean coasts of Canada.
In other words, most of this money is spent elsewhere, not in BC, and has already been spent. Look on the eligible projects page and it will have virtually nothing to do with habitat restoration. Neither do the expenses part of it.
I should add that I could find no words that link the project to the SEP program in BC - and there are loads of text pages and links. Nor do I find any budget figures to substantiate Cheryl's $18.6M spent 'in' BC; however, the map in the documents makes it clear that BC would be the small recipient in this across-Canada program.
"In addition, the Department funds and delivers the Recreational
Fisheries Conservation Partnerships Program (RFCPP). The RFCPP was
developed to support projects led by recreational fishing and angling groups,
as well as conservation organizations, aimed at improving the conservation of
recreational fisheries habitat."
Here is what I see: it is an across Canada program of only $8.6M. In 2017/18 it spent $4M, and presumably spent the same in 18/19, so the max that is left is $.6M for 2019. So, if it is across Canada that means .6/10 = .06M or $60,000 for BC this year. And, there is more, DFO is looking more kindly at Indigenous for receiving funding, Doesn't that mean at best, we are looking at half of that, or $30,000 for Recreational Fisheries Conservation Partnerships Program in BC this year?
Is it just me that sees weasel words everywhere I look, or is it that there are weasel words everywhere I/we look, when it comes to dealing with DFO?
Hmm.
(If you had trouble reading the blacked out words, I posted this on my fish farm blog, where it is easier to read: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/05/dfo-srkws-and-funding-yet-again-yes-yet.html).
