Ecosystem+management

Ecosystem Management is a tool for applying the sustainability concept and an attempt to create human-nature fit in context of ecosystem.
 * Key principles include:
 * Hierarchical context
 * Ecological boundaries
 * Use ecological boundaries for analysis
 * Ecological integrity
 * Protecting natural diversity in landscape
 * Monitoring
 * Adaptive management
 * Interagency cooperation
 * Humans in nature
 * Values

Ecosystem management is a tool used in applying the concept of sustainability in trying to fit humans into the natural ecosystem which we are a part of. Of more significance to the fish farming on B.C.'s west coast is adaptive management, which means that fish farmers, ecologists and local people still do not fully understand the effects that various fish farming practices have on the local environment and economy as well as global effects such as the 55% drop in the value of wild or farmed salmon from 1988 - 2002. Therefore to be able to be adaptive, policy makers must see fish farming as an experiment, that needs to be constantly reevaluated and or stopped if they are causing irreversible damage to the environment, wild fish stocks, and the livelihood of the people who live and rely on the coastal salmon.



As humans we are not separated from nature, but we are able to live outside our means and because of that we have to manage how we treat the environment. Fish farming has shown many signs that they are having degrading effects on local wildlife including wild salmon through sea-lice, shellfish in proximity to the farms, and other plants and animals. At the first signs of these effects policy makers should be required to step in and experiment with different restrictions in a goal to make more of an equitable relationship between the economic benefits and the positive environmental solutions.

In the case of salmon farming, the ecosystem of the coast, and the health of every species in it has been completely overlooked. Salmon farms were put in place with little consideration of the ecological impacts. The only idea is to make it a viable and profitable industry, regardless the impacts. The use of antibiotics and genetic engineering only prove this statement further. The DFO recently stated they can find no evidence that the fish farms are harming the environment or the wild fishery. Again, this only shows the incompetence of their methodology, or that their methodology only yields a pro fish farming outcome. Perhaps third party scientists from Alaska should do an assessment. The DFO and provincial government would never allow any such intervention for fear of harming or destroying the fish farming industry. Partnership is a large and very important part of ecosystem management or any type of management and with few or little partnerships the more bias an outcome in reaserch will be, which may be the case in fish farming here.