LOBSTER INC.

More big money could bring more trouble to inshore lobster fishers

C
Fisherman Darren Porter works to protect all fish stocks in the Bay of Fundy

“INSHORE LOBSTER FISHERMEN ARE SCARED SHITLESS," SAYS CORY FRANCIS. "And they should be," he says. "They really should be.” And it’s all because of big money.

Francis, a former official with the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia, is certain there is an agenda to “sell out the inshore fishery into an overall corporate entity.”

What makes it worse is that the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) and Indigenous organizations are okay with it.

An unnoticed threat

Worse still, is that this reality is playing out virtually unnoticed, while the latest confrontations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous fishers in the waters surrounding Nova Scotia grab all the headlines. The late September flare up on the lower east side of the Bay of Fundy saw non-Indigenous lobster fishers harass Indigenous fishers and steal or destroy their gear.

“Racism is a big part of that dispute,” says long-time community organizer Donald John. “And it should not be overlooked or excused. But it’s like arguing over who has a right to paint the deck chairs on the Titanic. In the end it won’t matter. The whole inshore lobster fishery is likely to go down, and racism won’t have anything to do with it. Big money will.”

Fishing blind

The first certainty about the lobster fishery in Nova Scotia is that it is worth a lot to a lot of individuals and to all of Nova Scotia. The second certainty is that there is no certainty about how to keep the fishery sustainable. The result is years and years and years of dispute, argument, accusation and confrontation.

Lobster is Canada’s most valuable fishery. According to DFO 2016 data, lobster was worth $1.3 billion at the wharf and contributed 44% of the total commercial value of all fisheries in Atlantic Canada. In 2019, the value of Canada’s lobster exports was nearly $2.6 billion.

Lobster is landed at 300 communities in the Maritime region, where it directly employs 7,500 people, providing important economic benefits in coastal communities, including Indigenous communities.

There’s a total of 2,979 lobster licences in the entire Maritime region—just 4.5% of those (134) belong to Indigenous fishers.

Yet, despite the immense economic and social value of the lobster fishery, not much is known about the species. DFO web pages devoted to the lobster fishery are skimpy or uncertain about lobster biology and behaviour.

For example, the DFO will not confirm that the designation of seasons is solely based on lobster biology.

Markets make the seasons

Membertou First Nation Chief Terrance Paul says lobster seasons were “created by industry,” and that they are actually “marketing seasons.”

In truth, seasons and trap limits did nothing to control a rising trend in overall lobster landings.

All sides claim species conservation—not personal profit— is their greatest concern. Susanna Fuller is not so sure. Fuller is a vice president at Oceans North, a charitable organization that promotes science- and community-based conservation in the Arctic and Atlantic Canada. Her organization recently held two online workshops on marine species at risk and conservation measures that could be brought in to protect them.

Not one person showed up for the workshop held for non-Indigenous fishermen, Fuller says. “Then we held the workshop with First Nations, and it was full. So you tell me who cares more.”

Corporate buy up emerging threat

Fuller says corporations may turn out to be the greatest threat to the independent inshore lobster fishery. Corporations are buying up commercial lobster licences through trust agreements—despite the fact it is against the law.

“Some guys are getting a tonne of money,” says Fuller. “They get their licences for $25 and sell them for half a million, and they don’t care who they sell them too.  I do think there needs to be more digging into the corporate buyout and whether or not DFO is enforcing the no trust agreements.”

The Lobster Fishing Area 41(LFA 41) is not like any other in Nova Scotia. It is the biggest by far. It is offshore, starting 92 kilometers out in the Atlantic off Cape Breton. All the licenses to fish lobster there are owned by one man: John Risley.

Risley is the billionaire founder of the shellfish harvesting and marketing giant Clearwater Fine Foods. He was able to lobby officials into letting him acquire a monopoly ownership of LFA 41 licences.

Unlike the inshore lobster fishery Clearwater’s offshore licences have no trap or season limits. It’s 720 tonnes quota can be fished all year round.

Clearwater recently sold two of its eight offshore licences to Membertou First Nation for $25 million.

Fuller points out: “So Clearwater got access to that public resource for no money, and now they’re selling it for a tonne of money.”

The mother of all stocks

Boris Worm, a marine ecologist and the Killam Research Professor at Dalhousie University, “says  it’s difficult to know where Clearwater is catching its lobsters. And that should be a concern, he says, because the inshore lobster stocks probably depend on a “big brood stock offshore” with “these big brooders, these big females that produce lots and lots of eggs and they keep the whole thing going."

Worm says, “it’s a bit of a biological mystery” how the inshore stock can be in good shape when 90% of it is caught up year after year. “One of the possible explanations that has a lot of support,” he says, “is that actually we’re only fishing the part of the population that’s inshore; the issue of offshore population historically was largely untouched.”

There should be no problem as long as the offshore remains untouched, says Worm. It’s like living off the interest on the money you have in the bank. So long as you just do that, there is no problem. But, withdrawing from your nest egg will get you into big trouble.

Worm adds that we don’t even know how big the offshore lobster nest egg might be; nor even what the “rate of interest” is and for how long we can pay it.

However, there is one final certainty: Allowing billionaires to turn managing lobster stocks into a cash and carry business is not likely to end well for inshore fishers no matter their race.

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