Terrace Standard: Trust forms to safeguard and boost Skeena salmon
[The following article appeared in the November 7, 2007 edition of Terrace Standard]
A NEW group has sprung up, saying it’s time there be a region-wide effort to both protect and enhance Skeena River salmon populations.
The SkeenaWild Conservation Trust says the risk otherwise is a continuing decline in salmon populations, a circumstance it says spells trouble for everyone who lives within the river’s watershed.
“There’s a phrase you hear from ecologists and it’s ‘keystone species’, meaning that some species are regarded as more important to the ecology of an area than others. The salmon here certainly fit that bill,” says Ray Chipeniuk, the trust’s Smithers-based senior researcher.
“So really, the health of the river determines the health of the salmon.”
He said it’s not hard to realize how important salmon are to the area starting with their cultural and food value to native peoples up to other people who fish salmon for recreational purposes.
“I know here, in the Bulkley Valley, there are people who have moved here simply for the recreational fishing aspect of the salmon,” Chipeniuk continued.
The trust has a seven-member board that includes former Haisla chief councillor Gerald Amos of Kitamaat Village.
There’s a representative from the tourism industry and a lawyer as well.
Chipeniuk himself has a PhD in regional planning and resource development.
For now, the trust is concentrating on assembling an inventory of cultural and ecological assets of the Skeena and baseline data on salmon habitat in the Skeena headwaters area.
Aside from the concentration on salmon, Chipeniuk said he was interested in Terrace Mayor Jack Talstra’s recent call for a Skeena River governing authority.
Talstra may be referring to something based on bringing together user groups and local governments, but Chipeniuk says the idea of safeguarding salmon and salmon habitat within that structure makes sense.
“I suspect he’s quite conscious of the poor fit between local government boundaries and local environmental matters,” Chipeniuk.
“In your area – the mid to lower Skeena – you have the City of Terrace, the District of Kitimat, the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine.
But a single environmental action transcends those boundaries quite easily and up until now, the dependence is on informal ways to cope and manage,” Chipeniuk continued.