From The Globe & Mail – April 5, 2011
by Mark Hume
An unguarded note a Department of Fisheries and Oceans manager wrote
to himself has given a judicial inquiry a glimpse into the frustrations
and fears felt by frontline staff fighting to save salmon habitat in
British Columbia.
The brief, one-page document written by Jason
Hwang, a manager for DFO’s Habitat and Enhancement Branch in the
Kamloops area, was entered as evidence at the Cohen commission on
Tuesday by Judah Harrison, a lawyer representing a coalition of
conservation groups.
Mr. Harrison, who obtained the document through disclosure, described
it as “a sort of unguarded critique” of DFO’s struggles to protect
habitat.
“Well, I definitely agree it’s unguarded,” said Mr.
Hwang, who was one of three DFO witnesses testifying on habitat issues.
“I believe I wrote that for myself for some upcoming planning meeting. .
. .trying to reflect on some key things we were grappling with.”
Mr. Hwang said the note is a few years old, but in response to questions from Mr. Harrison, he agreed things haven’t changed.
“Huge
amount of development in Thompson, Okanagan, Nicola, Shuswap. We can’t
keep up. Referral backlog is up to 4 months,” wrote Mr. Hwang, whose
department is responsible for ensuring salmon habitat is not degraded by
logging, mining, agriculture, urban growth and other activities. “We
are not able to pursue smaller occurrences that in the past we have
pursued and prosecuted.”
Earlier in the week, the commission heard
that DFO is not meeting its key policy goal of ensuring that
developments do not cause a net loss of fish habitat. The commission,
which is examining the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River,
also heard DFO’s effectiveness was hampered by a new habitat management
policy (known as the Environmental Process Modernization Plan, or EPMP),
which staff in B.C. resisted because it was “lowering the bar” on
environmental protection.
“EPMP and staff reductions have reduced
our ability to engage with proponents. . .we don’t have a handle on what
is actually going on,” Mr. Hwang stated in his note.
“We have no viable referral system. This is killing us,” he stated.
“We
are without question not attaining no net loss. . .Our staff are very
dis-illusioned [sic] that the department is not doing more to address
this.
“The relationship between province and DFO is in a state of
disfunction [sic]. We don’t coordinate on referrals in any consistent
way, and there is no guidance or leadership from Vancouver-Victoria on
this.”
Mr. Hwang also wrote DFO was not keeping up with the
increased logging authorized by the province in response to the mountain
pine-beetle epidemic, which has swept through much of the B.C.
Interior, killing huge stands of timber.
“We are totally
disengaged from operational forestry. Rates of cut have increased
massively in response to MPB. We don’t have a handle on what is going
on, and are not providing any meaningful guidance on what we would like
to see for fish,” wrote Mr. Hwang.
The frank assessment of DFO’s
failings contrasted with the more cautious evaluations given in direct
testimony by Mr. Hwang, and his co-witnesses, Patrice LeBlanc, director
of habitat policies for DFO in Ottawa, and Rebecca Reid, a regional
director in the Pacific.
They portrayed DFO as doing a good job despite the challenges of budget restrictions and staffing cuts.
Dr.
Craig Orr, who was observing proceedings as executive director of the
Watershed Watch Salmon Society, said he was dismayed by the testimony.
“The
evidence supports the widely held belief that government is more
concerned with streamlining harmful industrial development and
bolstering flagging public confidence than in protecting critical salmon
habitat,” he said.
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