Some in herring industry fail to see the need for FRCC review

By Tina Comeau

SOU’WESTER

It’s tackled snow crab and lobster, now the FRCC has been asked by the federal fisheries minister to study herring.

But those in the Scotia Fundy herring fishery fail to see the need for such a review.

“What useful purpose can it be to have a meeting with people who don’t know anything about herring? They’re going to recommend to the minister how we run our fishery? It’s ludicrous,” said Dick Stewart from his Yarmouth, N.S. office of the Atlantic Herring Co-op.

Minister Loyola Hearn has asked the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (FRCC) to develop a long-term strategic approach to Atlantic herring conservation.

"Considering the importance of the Atlantic herring in Atlantic Canada, I have asked the FRCC to consult widely with all stakeholders in order to understand and consider all the issues related to conservation of this key resource and sustainability of the fishery," he said. "I have asked them to develop an Atlantic-wide Strategic Sustainability Framework to help ensure that the herring fishery continues on a sustainable basis."

But Stewart doesn’t see what the FRCC can do that the industry in Scotia Fundy isn’t already doing. The industry is involved in a process where it studies the total herring fishery. The process is peer-reviewed by scientists. Another unique feature is a herring science council in place for Scotia Fundy.

“We’ll spend half a million dollars or more in the next two years, and we spent hundreds of thousands in the past doing our own science,” Stewart said. “Now if they’d take the $2 million of more that they’ll spend on the FRCC and put it into science, they’d get more bang for their buck.”

Stewart added another unique feature to Scotia Fundy is it is a bilateral fishery with the United States.

“It makes a whole different aspect on the management and the science, which doesn’t happen, say in the Gulf or Newfoundland.”

Stewart said his group never requested, nor was it consulted about, a review like the one the minister has announced.

He does note that the Gulf region has experienced problems because of a dispute involving herring fishers in New Brunswick and P.E.I. Given that they would probably be more receptive to the review, Stewart says.

New Brunswick seiners have long argued they’ve only been able to catch about half of their quotas because of DFO management rules – namely a rule that excluded N.B. herring seiners from waters shallower than 25 fathoms off the shore of Prince Edward Island. But P.E.I. hasn’t wanted to give N.B. seiners fishing access because it has argued doing so put its lobster fishery and other species at risk.

Denny Morrow, executive director of the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Associations, suspects this gear conflict is the main reason the FRCC has been asked to look at the herring industry.

“For the Scotia Fundy herring fishery (includes Bay of Fundy), I don't see any benefit. Industry will have to spend valuable time and resources on the FRCC process and we already contribute a lot of time and money to scientific work and to assessments,” Morrow said. “In my view, the FRCC has been asked to do this because of gear sector conflicts in the Gulf of St. Lawrence herring fishery and because the P.E.I. and New Brunswick governments are involved in the dispute. DFO Ottawa wants a buffer like the FRCC to become involved for a year.”

The report the FRCC is being asked to compile, which is expected to be similar in nature to earlier reports dealing with snow crab and Atlantic lobster, is expected by June 2009.

Morrow notes the FRCC presented its lobster report to Ottawa last June and there still hasn’t been a response from the minister’s office to it.

According to DFO, the Atlantic herring fishery is the most important pelagic species in Atlantic Canada with annual landings of 160,000 tons and a landed value of almost $40 million. This is divided among a number of uses, including food products and bait, and many users. In total, more than 7,700 harvesters participate in this fishery. As well as supporting an important commercial resource, this species is also an important component of the ecosystem, being a key prey item in the diet of many other fish and mammals and, in turn, a predator of other fish species.

The FRCC will be expected to focus on herring science, management measures, harvesting practices, and the roles of all the stakeholders in the fishery, in mapping out recommendations to promote a sustainable fishery.

But like Stewart and Morrow, Tim Kaiser, president of Scotia Garden Seafood in Yarmouth, doesn’t think an FRCC review is needed by the overall industry.

“We have significant ongoing science in herring now. We’ve identified what’s good and what needs work. What we’re lacking is the science funding to complete the work that’s necessary and really, we don’t need another big review,” he said.

Kaiser notes they have an annual science review called the RAP process – regional assessment process. And Scotia Fundy has recently embarked on a framework assessment process, where it will review how science has been conducted in the fishery for the past 10 years.

“That’s where I was suggesting we’ve identified what we do well. We’ve identified where there’s gaps in the information and we’ve embarked on a program to try and to correct those gaps. But that’s where we lack the science resources and science funding to do it,” Kaiser said. “I guess my concern with the FRCC is I don’t believe they have the expertise in herring that we already have in the industry and I’m not sure what new they’re going to bring it.”