First, a big thank you to all the members and donors who have supported the WHC cause so far. Here is the update and where they are in the process:
Just before Christmas the W̱SÁNEĆ Hereditary Chiefs received a legal opinion from Ratcliff LLP on their options for pursuing a moratorium over the commercial Pacific Herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia fishing area. The W̱SÁNEĆ people are beneficiaries to the Douglas Treaty , which provides a treaty right to “carry on fisheries as formerly.” The legal opinion in summary is:
The W̱SÁNEĆ Hereditary Chiefs could bring a lawsuit against DFO in the BC Supreme Court arguing that their Douglas Treaty fishing right has been significantly reduced at least in part by the commercial fishery.
It needs to be proven that herring are significantly reduced in traditional harvesting areas and that the reduction is caused at least in part by overfishing.
DFO continue to assert that the population is at historic baseline levels from 1951 and that spatial and temporal changes are simply fish moving around.
The next steps are to:
* Write a carefully-planned legal letter to DFO to meaningfully consider request for a moratorium.
* Collect the scientific and anthropological evidence with expert witnesses to present the evidence.
The HCRS are supporting the WHC by building up a committee of western scientists and advisors to collect the evidence and to support expert witnesses.
We have raised the money for the legal letter and work on that will start March 1.
We will need to raise additional moneys to conduct carefully documented video interviews with elders and bring expert witnesses in if necessary. This will go on throughout the spring.
We anticipate the letter will be ready by June, which is prior to the decisions that DFO make on the fishery for the next year.
So many of these cases rely at the end of the day on small technical details and the quality of the evidence so we are putting all hands on the deck to support the Chiefs.
Part of how you can help is to become an annual member with the whatever you can afford. We have come a long way in a short time and we hope you can see how this critical legal decision can one again bring health and wholeness back to the Salish Sea and the people that have tended the seas for millennia.
Briony
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