Five B.C. First Nations have won the right to harvest and sell nearly any fish in their traditional territories, with at least one exception – the geoduck.
In a decision handed down Wednesday, the BC Court of Appeal upheld a 2009 BC Supreme Court ruling that recognized the Nuu-chah-nulth’s aboriginal rights to fishing and trading within their traditional territory.
Justice John Hall found “there was significant intertribal trade in early times at and before contact in fisheries products on the coast and across Vancouver Island by the ancestors of the respondents.”
The Nuu-chah-nulth includes several First Nations communities along the West Coast of Vancouver Island, encompassing a territory that stretches some 300 kilometres.
“This case shows that First Nations rights are a central part of our ability to build our economies, strengthen our people and nations and unlock our full potential,” said Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo.
The appeal came after the federal government disputed the Supreme Court judge’s 2009 findings that enough evidence existed to support the aboriginal claim to the fisheries.
Although the Nuu-Chah-nulth have won the right to harvest and sell most of the fish in their territorial waters, one particularly lucrative market has been left out.
The Court of Appeal did not extend aboriginal right to the geoduck fishery, noting that it’s a modern-day enterprise the ancestors of the First Nations wouldn’t have partaken in.
“Because the commercial geoduck fishery is what I would describe as a high tech fishery of very recent origin, there can be no viable suggestion that the ancestors of the respondents could have participated in the commercial harvesting and trading of this particular marine resource,” Hall wrote in his decision.
Business in Vancouver reported in February that some First Nations wanted the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to issue new geoduck licenses to allow them to harvest the giant mollusk. (See “Bands want in on giant clam trade” – issue 1111, February 8-14, 2011).
The geoduck industry, meanwhile, has resisted the issuance of new licences, saying it would cut deeply into the pocketbooks of fishermen who rely on the industry.
The average geoduck licence is valued at $3.25 million. There are only 55 licences in B.C.
Joel McKay