Question Period Note: Area-Based Aquaculture Management

• Our government has heard concerns from some Indigenous communities in British Columbia and other Canadians regarding fish farms and their potential impacts on wild salmon and the environment.
• We are working with Indigenous, provincial, and industry partners in British Columbia to explore the feasibility of adopting a more collaborative and area-based approach to the planning, management, and monitoring of aquaculture activities.
• The adoption of area-based approaches will help to ensure that aquaculture is undertaken in a manner that is both environmentally sustainable and socially acceptable to the people living along Canada’s rich and sensitive coastlines.

• Area-based aquaculture management (ABAM) is a new co-management approach that aims to ensure that the planning, monitoring, and ongoing management of aquaculture activities occur at geographic scales capable of taking into consideration environmental, social, and economic conditions in which they are either occurring or planned to take place.
• On October 11, 2018, during the launch of the International Year of the Salmon, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans announced a range of new initiatives to minimize the risks of aquaculture, including the adoption of an “area-based management approach” in collaboration with provincial and Indigenous partners. On September 28, 2020 and again on November 12, the Government committed to the adoption of collaborative area-based aquaculture management, and to advance its commitment to develop a responsible plan to transition marine net-pen salmon farming in BC waters.
• The key to advancing ABAM will be the establishment of new federal-provincial-Indigenous governance structures for aquaculture at province-wide and sub-regional (area-based scales). While specific roles and responsibilities are yet to be determined, it is generally expected that these co-management bodies will serve as communal fora to: improve sharing of information, including traditional knowledge; identify key research gaps and priorities; identify opportunities and restrictions for industry activity and/or growth; establish monitoring and reporting requirements; and improve awareness and communication with local communities.
• On June 15, 2020, an ABAM technical working group, one of three technical working groups supporting the DM-chaired Indigenous and Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Body on Aquaculture, submitted recommendations outlining a proposed geographic and governance structure for implementing ABAM in BC. The Department will formally respond to these recommendations in the coming weeks.
• Departmental officials have recently begun working with the First Nation Fisheries Council of BC to increase awareness of the proposed area-based aquaculture management approach and seek the interest of Indigenous communities in participating in its roll-out in the province.

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