The salmon cycle is a natural legacy that's part of BC's cultural heritage and the provincial government should be doing everything possible to ensure its survival. Extending the moratorium on fish farming in BC makes sense both ecologically and economically. BC's wild salmon stocks are already under siege from overfishing and clearcut logging, and allowing an expansion of fish farms would only make an already critical situation worse. Raincoast and the Wilderness Committee are also calling on the Clark government to phase-out the existing sea based fish farms. Fish farming is already a doomed industry in BC as there is an emerging market campaign against farmed salmon.
Consumers are increasingly wary of farmed salmon.
For example, four major supermarket chains in Great Britain have refused to buy Scottish farmed salmon because of fears around disease transmission. The fish farm induced ecological disasters in Norway, Scotland, Ireland and New Brunswick are clear evidence that fish farm expansion in BC is not worth the risk.