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Clayoquot Green Economic Opportunities Project
SECTORAL ANALYSIS
THE FISHERY AND FISH PROCESSING
Coho Salmon, Photo: Tall Boy Fishing. 2001
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Overall Assessment:
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There are a number of opportunities for the introduction of new, supplementary fisheries in the Clayoquot Biosphere region. The structure and management of these new opportunities will be key to their impact on local economies. Adding value to the fishery through onshore processing, niche market development and value-added product development will significantly increase the economic impact of each fish caught.
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Ed Note: Rating the potential of the fishery is a complex task. There are clearly a number of new opportunities that might be developed, but the regulatory regime for new fisheries is extremely complex, the benefits to local communities unclear because of the high costs of access and the environmental impacts dependent on management regimes.
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It remains difficult, within the current regime of licensing and fisheries management, to plan for new business development since access to a minimum level of catch is often required. Efforts to work in a more coordinated way across the region and the opportunity to diversify the fishery (both in terms of species and fishing season), along with structures that maximize local authority over decision making will be key to long term sustainability in this sector.
Clearly, the costs associated with the fishing industry have and will continue to increase as license fees increase, allocation regimes limit catch, monitoring and catch reporting costs are passed from governments to vessel owners and there is consolidation and price controlling in the processing sector.
A few commercial fishing vessels (estimated to be less than 50) remain in the region and continue to fish for at least part of each season. However, without access to the few lucrative fisheries that remain (halibut, black cod, herring), the small boat fleet with eventually be financially squeezed out of the industry.
Overview: Current status and trends in the industry
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BC's fisheries sector has undergone significant changes in the last decade. Historically, the industry was dominated by activity related to the harvesting and processing of wild salmon. Other species accounted for a relatively small share of the industry's output. More recently, the emphasis of the industry has been on diversification, placing an increased emphasis on species other than salmon.
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Government initiatives to balance the size of the fleet in relation to diminishing salmon stocks played a large role in the restructuring of the fishing industry that took place in the late 1990's. The commercial fleet responded to these initiatives by retiring vessels, changing gear to focus on alternative species, developing new markets and adding value to catch.
At the same time, technological changes and policy shifts have increased emphasis and opportunity in the finfish aquaculture industry. In the 1980's aquaculture was predominately focussed on shellfish. Since the 1990's, the aquaculture industry has been dominated by the farming of salmon. The growth in aquaculture is so significant in the province, that the annual landed value of farmed salmon and shellfish now surpasses the landed value of the wild fishery[1].
The combined fisheries and aquaculture sectors in BC in 2001 generated 601 million, less than 1% of the province's total Gross Domestic Product. The single largest contributing
sector of the fishing industry was the sports fishery, with a GDP of 228 million dollars. Fish processing (82 million), aquaculture (116 million) and the commercial fishery (170 million) contributed smaller amounts to the overall economic health of the province[2]. The value of farmed salmon production in the province actually exceeded the value of the wild salmon catch in both 1998 and 1999 - a reflection of the decline in the wild salmon stock available for harvest during those seasons.
The province's fish processing industry has felt the effect of a dwindling catch, and both GDP and output in this component of the fishing industry have fallen (in absolute terms) since the early 1980s. Two-thirds of the people working in the fishery have jobs in occupations specific to fishing or manufacturing More than a third (35%) of the people working in fishing are employed as skippers, masters and officers, deckhands, harvesting laborers, or in other activities specific to fishing. Just under a third (31%) are in jobs that are specific to fish processing. People with skills and training in the natural and applied sciences also make up a significant percentage (13%) of the industry's workers. Many of them are chemists and biologists, or in similar fields. Another 6% of the people working in the industry have jobs as trades and transportation equipment operators. Of the remaining 15%, business, finance and administrative workers (5%) and people with jobs in sales and services (4%) make up the largest number of workers[3].
In 1999, there were 6,900 people employed in the province's fishing and fish processing industries. The processing of fish caught by both BC and foreign fish boats accounts for 40% (3,300) of the jobs in this industry[4].
Part-time work is more common in the fishing and fish processing industry than in most other types of goods production. One in four workers in this industry is employed part-time, meaning that he/she spends less than 30 hours a week on the job.
Relatively few women work in the commercial fishery (including aquaculture), where they make up just 20% of the work force. However, nearly half of the workers in fish processing plants are female.
There are some gaps in the data, but unemployment rates in the commercial fishery hovered around the 20% mark (more than twice the provincial average) during much of the 1990s. The jobless rate was similarly high in the fish-processing sector. As is the case in agriculture, self-employment is very common in this industry, accounting for about a quarter of all employment. About 40% of the people who work in the commercial fishery are self-employed, but it's less common in fish processing.
Aboriginal Fishing Strategy: It is the policy of the Department to encourage increased Aboriginal communal participation in and integration with coastal commercial fisheries. Aboriginal involvement in the fishery is a shared goal between the Department and Aboriginal people. It is a means to stimulate Aboriginal economic development
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opportunities and develop fisheries expertise in Aboriginal communities, while serving as the basis for more cooperation between Aboriginal communities and the commercial fishery
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Halibut are of continuing importance to First Nations, who harvest them for food, social and ceremonial purposes. There is extensive use of Halibut by coastal First Nations.
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sectors. Aboriginal participation in the commercial fisheries is being accommodated through the Licence Retirement/Allocation Transfer Program. The Fisheries and Oceans Canada Licence Retirement/Transfer Program (ATP) retires existing commercial licence eligibilities from fishers on a voluntary basis and re-issues these to eligible Aboriginal organizations as communal commercial licences (category "FL" licences). The program has retired 16 commercial FL licences to date, which represents 3.69% of the commercial fleet.
The Department negotiates approximately 74 agreements annually with 145 First Nations in BC and the Yukon. Several of these agreements include provisions for the harvest of Halibut for food, social and ceremonial purposes. The level of harvest is unknown at this time. First Nations access to fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes is managed through a Communal License.
The Pilot Sales Projects are an important element of the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy (AFS). Through agreements made between Fisheries and Oceans Canada and aboriginal groups, aboriginal communities are authorized to sell specified amounts of fish subject to conservation needs and to agreed monitoring, enforcement and management regimes. The Somass River Fishery in Port Alberni holds one of three provincial licenses for pilot sales.
Fishing in the Clayoquot Biosphere Region: As is the case for other resource-based industries, while fishing and fish processing doesn't play as a big a role in BC's economy as it once did, there are still many communities where the fishery and related manufacturing activities are important to the local economy. The small communities on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, including Ahousaht, Ucluelet and Port Alberni are among those that continue to gain at least some component of their local economy as well as a good part of their identity through their attachment to the wild fishery.
Ucluelet has been significantly impacted by the decline in the fish-processing sector. Three processing plants (Ucluelet Seafood Processing, Canadian Seafood Processing and Robert Wholey Ltd) that ten years ago ran 24-hour shifts during peak summer and fall fishing seasons, now sit largely idle for much of every year. At least half of a processing workforce that was once one of the most skilled in the country has relocated or moved into other economic activities.
Fisheries infrastructure, including docks, vessels, off-loading facilities, icehouses and net lofts are facilities that remain in the region as valuable and underutilized assets. Most of the fish caught in West Coast waters are now processed in Vancouver instead of in one of the region's plants. This year, as this report is being prepared, the community waits anxiously to learn what percentage of the off-shore hake fishery will be landed for local processing. The answer is a weather-bell for their annual economic health and hardship.
The WCVI Aquatic Management Board has recently commissioned a study to determine how many fishing licenses remain in the hands of local residents and their early analysis signals a number that is remarkably low (likely less than 30-principally salmon, groundfish and halibut). This means not only less fish boats and fishing jobs, it also has a profound effect on the overall health of the economy because of the loss of revenue to secondary industries including marine weighs, storage facilities, marine supply stores and transportation systems.
Photo: WCVI Aquatic Management Board
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In an attempt to keep some of the fishing infrastructure in place and fishing revenues in the region, considerable emphasis has been placed on developing alternative fisheries - both underutilized species and new species. The region, through the West Coast Sustainability Association, developed and hosted an experimental fishery for Tanner Crab (1999-2001).
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This fishery has now been established and there are two licenses in the hands of West Coast residents. Processing, for the time being at least, has been centered in Port Hardy rather than in Ucluelet as originally envisioned. The West Coast Vancouver Island Aquatic Management Board is currently working with the Gooseneck Barnacle harvesters to establish a three-year scientific license that will reopen that fishery on a limited basis. Other potential opportunities for development and diversification as identified by the WCVIAMB have been summarized on the accompanying chart.
Each will require significant coordination effort and time to establish the parameters of management, monitoring, allocation and reporting as required by the DFO for new or underutilized fisheries. The commitment (in time, money, expertise and political will) required for opening or reopening fisheries is perhaps the single largest hurdle to development in this sector at the present time.
There are also a host of other issues which act as constraints to marine-based growth and diversification in the region including:
- The slow progress of treaty-making with First Nations which would help to clarify issues of right-of-access to existing and new fisheries
- Intertwined, complex and often competing federal/provincial regulatory regimes
- Weakened management and science capacity both federally and provincially to conduct stock assessment, establish monitoring and enforcement regimes and work with local fishermen to develop plans for fisheries development
- A risk-averse policy framework
- Licensing and allocation issues that, in historical fisheries are difficult to restructure and in new fisheries are difficult to establish in ways that maximize local control and benefit.
There is a need for the fishery to become more vertically integrated as well as more diversified. To take advantage of opportunities within the commercial fleet, not only does the region need more fish landings to be processed in the community, but they also need processors and fishermen to work more collaboratively.
To process new commercial species, some recapitalization/retooling in the plants would likely be required.
Bringing fish into the region from other sources to be processed is a second option. A cold storage facility would have to be established to support this activity.
Assessment of the sector by SCED Criteria:
The application of the SCED criteria to the fishery needs to be done on a species-specific basis; assessment that is beyond the scope of this current project. However, it is not beyond the scope of the process required to table and approve a Fisheries Management Plan. It is during the development of a FMP that decisions about the size and scope of
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Area based licensing was introduced in the clam fishery in 1989 as an attempt to control escalating effort by requiring harvesters to select annually one of seven license areas in which to fish. Despite this, the number of commercial clam harvesters remained high and resulted in the need for increasingly restrictive management measures in this fishery. Following the introduction of area licensing, approximately 1,900 commercial clam licenses were issued annually. The high number of harvesters and more restrictive management measures resulted in some license areas being opened for only one or two days each year. These management actions necessitated staggered openings between the various license areas to avoid harvest gluts and to maintain a year round supply of fresh clams to the market as defined in this management plans goals and objectives.
Since 1991 a process of management reform has been underway in the commercial clam fishery. This process has focused on the development of community based management initiatives with greater involvement and responsibility of stakeholders including First Nations in the stewardship of this resource.
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Each fishery are established based on, hopefully:
- an excellent assessment of stocks,
an understanding of species biology and disbursement patterns, and
- knowledge about competing and/or complementary species that could be impacted and a consciousness about strategic benefit to adjacent communities and user groups.
It is clear that the cultural and historical attachment to the fishery is profound on the West Coast for both First Nations and non-Native fishermen. It is also clear that the skills base and infrastructure related to fishing activity would make the return of the salmon or the introduction of new fishing opportunities a priority for economic development.
The WCVI Aquatic Management Board should be viewed as a key player in all efforts to rejuvenate fishery activity in the Region. Their ability to work with the federal and provincial government, local communities and user groups along with their interest in ensuring stock viability and maximum, long term benefit to local communities are important to sustainability, new thinking and new practices in the fishing sector.
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[1] BC Stats Information Management Unit, 2001
[2] BC Stats Information Management Unit, 2001
[3] COPS estimate (1998)/ 1996 Census data
[4] Labour Force Survey/COPS
Key Contacts, References and Resources
Contacts:
- Dan Edwards, Ucluelet Fisherman
- Danielle Edwards, Regional Fisheries Research
- Andrew Day, Vancouver Island Regional Aquatic Management Board
Publications:
- Mooney, Robert, Sea Urchin Management by Hesquiaht First Nation, Report prepared for Long Beach Model Forest Society, 1997
- Clayoquot Biosphere Project, Ecological Needs Assessment Survey, 1995
- Regional Aquatic Management Society, Current status and potential of West Coast Vancouver Island Fisheries, 2000
- BC Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, The 2001 BC Seafood Industry Year in Review, June 2002
Internet:
APPENDICES
CURRENT STATUS AND POTENTIAL OF WCVI FISHERIES
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