Сhapter ELEVEN
IN MY EXPERIENCE since I had become swept up in it in the late 1960s, the environmental movement worked for clean air, water, soil, and energy, for a world rich in diversity in which life flourished in abundance, and for sustainable communities and a way of living in balance with the rest of the biosphere. But to achieve those goals, we often had to try to stop destructive activities.
So it seemed ironic that we were always fighting against things—against testing underground nuclear explosives in Alaska, against drilling for oil in stormy Hecate Strait between Haida Gwaii and mainland British Columbia, against further damming the Peace River at site c in northern B.C. for hydroelectricity, against clear-cut logging, against pollution by pulp mills. As the chief executive officer of a forestry company once wrote, environmentalists seemed “anti-everything.”
As an academic with tenure at the University of British Columbia, a good grant, and a great group of students, I had a wonderful life. I had tremendous freedom, no time clock to punch, and no boss watching my every move. So long as I carried out my teaching and administrative work and directed my students, I could spend most of my time having fun, though to me that meant spending seven days a week, often till 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, at the lab. The freedom that academia offers enabled me to get involved in both civil-rights and environmental issues, and I began to throw myself into controversies.
In the 1970s, as host of both Science Magazine on television and Quirks and Quarks on radio, I was in a good position to explore a variety of issues, especially those related to race and the impact of modern genetics and technological advances on medical care. I spoke out on them, supported the peace movement, and opposed the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War. In British Columbia, it was impossible to avoid being drawn into environmental battles over pollution, clear-cut logging, and mining.
As an activist I operated in a helter-skelter fashion, getting involved when asked or when I saw something that triggered my interest. I could be useful by signing petitions, writing letters of support, giving talks to help raise funds or highlight issues with the public. But I was unfocused, helping out when the opportunity presented itself and acting as an individual.
Being high-profile brought some danger. When we were in the heat of the battles over logging, a bullet was fired through the front window of my home, my office was broken into twice to get at my computer; once, in Haida Gwaii, while I was jogging along the road outside the logging village of Sandspit, a truck was turned at me and I was driven into a ditch. Tara and I often felt very vulnerable and alone, and we worried about our children's safety.
During my fourth and last year (1978–79) as host of Quirks and Quarks, Anita Gordon had become the producer, and she continued in that role when Jay Ingram took my place. In 1988, with environmental concern making headlines, Anita asked me to host aCBC Radio series on the subject. I agreed, and we received the go-ahead to do five shows that were broadcast in a series called It's a Matter of Survival. Traveling to conferences in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, I interviewed for the program more than 150 scientists and experts from many countries and fields about environmental problems and how the world would look fifty years hence if we carried on with business as usual. Most of those interviews were conducted in an intense period of about four months, and I could suddenly see with crystal clarity that the very life-support systems of the planet were being destroyed at a horrifying rate and on a grand scale.
This new perspective galvanized me with a sense of urgency that has only increased over the years. The radio series conveyed the magnitude of the problem as well as the uplifting message that by acting now we could avoid the fate we were heading toward. The series evoked an incredible response. More than sixteen thousand letters came in, most ending with the plea, “What can I do?”
Until then, my standard response to such a query had been, “I'm just a messenger telling people about the crisis that is happening. I'm afraid I don't have all the solutions.” But this time Tara said, “David, we've been warning people about the problems for years. This response shows we've reached a lot of the general public, but now people feel helpless because they don't know what to do. You've got to go beyond the warnings and start talking about solutions.”
I didn't like assuming that responsibility, but I could see she was right. It's one thing to hear a dismaying report, but it's another thing altogether to track down experts, organizations, and articles that might offer answers. In raising the alarm, I now also had to provide something that would help people take action if they were so motivated.
This truth was brought home to me by another experience. Noam Chomsky, the famed linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the strongest critics of American foreign policy, gave a talk to a full house at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver. I chaired the event, and like the audience, I was enthralled by his analysis and insights. But during the question-and-answer period, he refused to recommend courses of action, organizations, or even books to read, saying that people had to find the material and make up their own minds. That helped me to realize that Tara was right: by informing and alarming people, I had a responsibility to suggest potential answers.
As well, many of our friends were anxious about strains on our ecosystems and had begun to challenge us to lead an initiative, perhaps to found a new organization. With their help, Tara and I drew up a list of about twenty “thinkers” who were committed to environmental issues but who had diverse skills and points of view; we invited them to a weekend retreat to discuss whether we needed a new, solution-oriented group. About a dozen people could make it, and in November 1989 they gave us three days of their precious time.
We gathered in the idyllic setting of Pender Island, one of the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland. The lodge where we met was close to the ocean and had an orchard and paths we could wander while discussing ideas. Tara and I were pretty naive about how to run such a meeting; at first we had no facilitator or written agenda, only questions and a sense of urgency. Luckily, Vancouver writer Stan Persky, known for his incisive analysis and his expertise at meetings, took over as chair.
I talked about my sobering and motivating experience working on It's a Matter of Survival and the enormous public response it received. Then I asked two questions: “Is there a need, an important role, for yet another environmental organization? And if the answer is yes, what would its focus be and how would it differ from other groups?”
The brainstorming participants were outspoken and irreverent, leading to vigorous, productive sessions. We agreed that most organizations we knew had sprung up as a result of a crisis—to oppose the spraying of a school yard with herbicide, to fight a factory polluting the water, to protect a treasured forest about to be clear-cut. But each crisis is merely a symptom or manifestation of a deeper, underlying root cause. Even if each crisis is resolved, we are no closer to long-term balance with our surroundings unless we get at the cause. An organization was needed to focus on root causes, so that steps could be taken to produce real change.
We agreed it should be a science-based organization. We would not do original research or give out research grants, but we would use the best scientific information available and hire scientists to help write or edit the papers we wanted to produce. Further, we would emphasize communication: we would learn how best to deliver this top-quality information to the public. Successful communication would be as important as the science itself. I have always believed this, which is why, as a scientist, I chose to go into television.
At the meeting on Pender Island, we also decided not to accept government grants or support—a decision that had enormous ramifications. Such support can become a substantial part of an organization's budget. But government priorities change easily; organizations are often told they could qualify for further grants if they would just shift their focus—and before anyone realizes it, the promise of continued funding is directing activities. We also decided that if companies offered us money, they would have to demonstrate a genuine commitment to environmental sustainability before we would consider accepting funds.
In the early days of the organization, the decision to abstain from government support made life difficult. We could have had several employees paid by Canada Manpower (the federal employment insurance system at the time) and grants to help us get up and running, but we chose to use only the money Tara and I were putting in. We stuck to that decision, and it gave us the freedom to speak out without worrying about jeopardizing our funding.
The group at Pender Island then decided the name of the organization should be the David Suzuki Foundation. I objected. It seemed conceited, and I was not in this endeavor to be remembered in perpetuity. It would also be an enormous responsibility to ensure that an organization carrying my name remained true to the values I believed in, as also shared and expressed by those at our retreat.
The counterargument was twofold. First, my profile in Canada had been built up over many years of working in science and the media and of speaking out, so my name would immediately tell people what the foundation stood for. If we named it the Pender Group, for example, we would be starting from scratch. Second, it might be possible to translate the reputation my work had created into fuel for the new organization. The viewers and readers who liked my work might send funds to support the initiative. It was a long debate, lasting many months, but in the end I had to acquiesce.
Miles Richardson, then president of the Haida Nation, was one of the first three board members, along with Tara and me. One of the strengths of the foundation from the beginning has been strong aboriginal input. Chief Sophie Pierre, the powerhouse administrator of the Ktunaxa-Kinbasket Tribal Council, attended the retreat with her little boy. Norma Cassi, outspoken young member of the Gwich'in First Nation of Old Crow in Canada's Yukon Territory, also joined us. A number of other key people had spent years working with First Nations communities.
By the end of the weekend, the Pender Island retreat had created a new organization. Now the challenge was to get it off the ground. But predictably, after the enthusiasm of the first gathering, everyone went back to their work. They were, after all, engaged scientists, lawyers, professors, and writers with far too much on their plates to begin with. Eight months later, nothing had happened.
Tara decided to get on with it. She met with a respected accountant to learn what had to be done, and she paid for a lawyer who by September 1990 had established our legal status as a charitable organization. Shortly after that, she found space for an office that was formally opened on January 1, 1991. Now the David Suzuki Foundation really existed.
The office was above an automobile repair shop and was cheap, but the gas and paint fumes seeping up through the floor each day must have been a serious health hazard. The roof leaked, the wastebaskets were populated with mice, and everything we had in the office—a raggedy collection of furniture and shelves—was borrowed or donated. From this bare-bones setting we were going to take on the world. It was a place where the original founding group could gather and where volunteers could drop in to work, which they did from the first day. We were gratified to see how willing people were to spend hours and days helping, but now we had to figure out what to do.
One of our first organizational arrangements proved unworkable, and it was my fault. At our founding meeting, we had decided to create a two-headed organization: an institute, which would carry out projects, and a foundation, which would have charitable status and raise funds for the institute. Each would have its own board. I had wanted to free the project arm from worrying about fund-raising so it could focus exclusively on its work, and I thought my best role would be to raise the money to get things done. The problem was that the institute board just wanted to bash ahead, and people became frustrated because we didn't have the money to do it, given that initially all the cash was coming from Tara and me. I didn't begrudge the money, but I wouldn't be able to provide enough for the projects we wanted to develop. I had to get busy helping the foundation raise funds.
Luckily, I was asked if I would like to raise money for a charity of my choice by joining a cruise from Vancouver to Alaska. I was to give lectures, and travelers would pay an extra, tax-deductible $125 to be part of our group. About 140 people signed up, and both Tara and I gave talks and promoted our new organization while discussing the environment. The ship had bars, restaurants, swimming pools, and a theater showing the latest films. Sarika was eight and still extremely shy, so I was surprised when we boarded the ship to see her scamper away with her sister and disappear for hours. She finally returned, breathless with excitement, clutching fistfuls of chocolate bars. “Daddy, Daddy!” she exclaimed. “There are stores with candy and it's all free. All you have to do is sign your name and room number!”
The trip was a delight, as we met people who were filled with enthusiasm and concern for environmental matters; many have remained our friends. Our efforts raised $18,000, which was a grand sum at that stage. But more was necessary; we had to use that money to find our supporters.
Over the years, thousands of people had written to The Nature of Things with David Suzuki. Many asked for transcripts, videos, or the names of experts: those requests were dealt with by staff. But many letters were addressed to me personally, asking a wide range of questions. I felt that if someone had taken the time to write a letter, he or she deserved a response. Usually I could jot a short note on a card, but often I wrote longer letters, always by hand.
All those people I wrote back to and the sixteen thousand who responded to It's a Matter of Survival made for a wonderful list of people we could approach for support. We met Harvey McKinnon, who had a long history of working for charitable organizations like Oxfam, and with his help, we drafted a letter reminding people they'd once written to me and asking for their support to find solutions to the ecological degradation of the planet.
The money we had raised from the Alaskan cruise paid for that first mailing. With the help of many volunteers, in November 1990 Tara sent out some 25,000 letters. What a learning curve that was! And then, just before Christmas, checks and cash began to come in, first as a trickle and then as a flood of full mailbags. Harvey said that in his fund-raising experience the returns were phenomenal.
Tara was both thrilled and appalled. It was one thing to pay for things with our own money; once donations were received, the responsibility was enormous. Having no experience in handling charitable donations, she had nightmares of losing track. We were also very aware that people had donated to us with faith that we would use their money effectively to carry out our mandate.
Within months of sending in forty- or fifty-dollar gifts, people were writing to ask what we had accomplished with their money. Our immediate needs were fund-raising software to track donations, computers to run it, and staff to keep all accounting accurate. We also had to increase our base of support by investing some of the funds in wider mailings. But our early supporters naturally wanted their money to go directly to projects that were protecting the environment. We had to come up with a creative solution that would bring quick results while developing the organization.
Tara and I had already been investing our own money to support Barbara Zimmerman, who was working in Brazil with Paiakan and the Kaiapo of Aucre to establish a research station in the Xingu River water-shed, which drains into the Amazon River. The project helps protect a vast, pristine area, so we transferred this project to the foundation.
I had also been introduced to the Ainu of Japan, an aboriginal people who had held on to their culture through 1,500 years of Japanese occupation. Now they were close to losing their language and their last sacred river, the Saragawa. The river was to be dammed to provide energy for industrial development on the northern island of Hokkaido. Many felt the dam was not necessary and that it would threaten the salmon, a totemic species to the Ainu.
I was asked to help raise international awareness of this latest threat to Ainu culture, so Tara and I sponsored a visit to Vancouver by Ainu children and Shigeru Kayano, an elder in his sixties who was the youngest person still speaking the Ainu language. At one point, the Japanese translator broke down and wept as she listened to Kayano recount how he had been treated as a child by the Japanese. The event was packed and brought the audience to tears.
Remembering our experience with Paiakan and the successful protest against the proposed dam at Altamira, we suggested holding a demonstration at the site of the dam on the Saragawa and inviting aboriginal people from other countries. This idea was enthusiastically accepted, and we ended up raising money to send delegations from several British Columbia First Nations communities: Alert Bay, Bella Bella, and Haida Gwaii. This project we also turned over to the foundation.
Wearing my blanket from B.C. First Nations as I am feted by Ainu people in Hokkaido
I had so looked forward to attending the demonstration and was disappointed when the date chosen for it coincided with a meeting of the International Congress of Genetics in Edinburgh, Scotland. I had agreed to be a vice president of the congress and to deliver a talk there, so I missed the gathering on Hokkaido. By all accounts it was a spectacular display as the First Nations from Canada danced and sang on the site of the dam. The event garnered a huge amount of media coverage. Unfortunately, it failed to move the Japanese government; the dam was built a few years later.
We were involved in other projects that became part of the foundation's early stable of accomplishments at little or no cost to the organization. Environmentalists and natives in western Colombia asked for help to protect the rich Choco rain forest, so Tara and I paddled a dugout up the Bora Bora River with a National Film Board crew from Canada to visit the people living in houses built on stilts and to produce a widely distributed program on the issues. In these ways, we demonstrated to our supporters that the foundation was actively engaged in significant projects, buying us time until the board could launch a well-thought-out slate of activities.
Tara had done a heroic job of getting the organization off the ground while learning everything from rules governing charities to board–staff relations, newsletter production, fund-raising techniques, and personnel issues. She had given up a prestigious teaching position at Harvard University to be a full-time volunteer for the foundation, but it took a huge toll. Whether at home or at play, she carried her work with her, an enormous weight of responsibility. I was still running around filming with The Nature of Things with David Suzuki, giving talks in different places, and raising money to support our foundation projects. Tara was stuck day in and day out with the nuts and bolts. She worked long hours, often seven days a week, coming home physically drained and psychologically burdened by worry.
Several times in those first twenty-four months, I told her, “Tara, let's drop it. You gave it a try, but it's just too much work. I can't do my share, and it's ruining your health.” But she stayed with it, something for which I have enormous admiration and gratitude. The foundation became her baby, and she was going to nurture it and see it grow into an effective organization.
Gradually we raised enough money to hire staff. Board members rolled up their sleeves. Soon we could bite the bullet and hire an executive director to give the foundation leadership and get the new, board-directed projects up and going.
We received a number of applications and winnowed them to a shortlist that included Jim Fulton, the Canadian member of Parliament who had tipped me off about the struggle over logging in Windy Bay in Haida Gwaii. Jim had been a probation officer and as a candidate for the New Democratic Party (NDP) had stunned political commentators by wresting the riding of Skeena away from the Liberal cabinet minister Iona Campagnolo.
Skeena is all of northwestern B.C., a vast area the size of France. It's exhausting just thinking about how a politician can work in Ottawa yet serve such a huge riding three thousand miles away. Jim says he missed every one of his kids' birthdays while he was in office. Jim is a larger-than-life character. He is well over six feet tall and has a powerful chest and arms and a belly that could absorb any frontal attack. With his hair and mustache now turned white, he reminds me of those mountain gorilla males called silverbacks; like them, he commands respect by sheer physical presence.
But Jim also has a mischievous air about him, and he has delighted in childlike play both as a politician and as executive director of our foundation. Perhaps his most famous stunt as an mp came when, in an attempt to stop the spread of a virus infecting the sockeye salmon, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans had put a barricade in the Babine River, which drains into the Skeena, thus preventing the salmon from reaching their spawning grounds. Jim learned about it and drove to witness the fish smashing repeatedly into the barrier as they tried in vain to move upriver. He captured a large female sockeye, which was dying without reaching the spawning beds to complete her lifecycle. Jim put her in a bag and took her carcass to Ottawa.
There he donned baggy pants, slipped the bag down his pant leg, and smuggled it into the House of Commons. He rose during Question Period to query the minister of Fisheries and Oceans about the sockeye in the Babine, knowing the answers from Erik Nielsen would be bafflegab. As Nielsen waffled, Jim suddenly yanked the salmon out of his pants, splashing slime onto his NDP colleague Margaret Mitchell, who screamed and alarmed the parliamentarians. Jim strode across the floor and slammed the fish onto Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's desk.
Jim Fulton, former Member of Parliament and now executive director of the David Suzuki Foundation, at play
All hell broke loose. Some thought Jim had pulled a weapon. In the pandemonium, Jim walked out to address the waiting media. It was a sensational stunt he claims spurred Nielsen to act and let the Babine sockeye through to spawn. But it also led to the passage of “the Fulton Rule,” which forbids a parliamentarian from carrying anything into the House that can be used as a weapon. Jim says he is proud of the fact that at the end of the species' next four-year cycle, the sockeye run in the Babine was one of the largest in recent history.
Jim was a serious politician and served his electorate well, as shown by his steadily increasing share of the vote through four elections. But it was on tough national issues—debates that lasted for years—that Jim really demonstrated his strength and vision of Canada.
In 1981, he successfully led the constitutional debate for the NDP in the House to secure the recognition and affirmation of aboriginal and treaty rights. For the next twelve years, Jim led the constitutional fight for the Nisga'a in Parliament, and today they have the first modern-day treaty in Canada.
Jim focused the battle on the floor of the House to save South Moresby, known to the Haida as Gwaii Haanas. It was his motion that was unanimously passed in Parliament and that triggered the release of $140 million to “seal the deal.”
For five years, Jim debated Prime Minister Trudeau's decision to allow Amax Corporation to dump 100 million tons of toxic waste into Canada's pristine Pacific fishing grounds. Jim won, the dumping was halted, and the House ruled that the authorization of the dumping was an abuse of power. It was a remarkable story of tenacity and courage.
During the Gulf War, Jim exposed Canada's illegal production and testing of nerve gas at Defence Research in Suffield, Alberta. And long before Kyoto, Jim's work with Paul Martin and David MacDonald on climate change led to an all-party report calling for 20 percent cuts from 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 2005.
When Jim decided to end his political career after fifteen years, his departure was eloquently lamented by columnists and colleagues on both sides of the House.
I was incredulous but delighted when Jim applied to become executive director of our foundation. We had no track record as an organization, and we faced a huge challenge in raising the money to do our projects. I thought he was just checking around to see what possibilities were available, but he insisted he wanted the job. It was flattering that he would consider us, but I joked to him that if he had a gender change, the decision would be a slam dunk; I was committed to hiring a woman, and I told our board I favored a female candidate.
But during our deliberations, it became clear that Jim's track record as a committed environmentalist, his experience as a politician, the high esteem he commanded from First Nations and communities, his irresistible personality, and his exuberant energy made him the best choice. Our final decision was unanimous, and we were thrilled when Jim accepted our offer. We could pay him only a fraction of what he could command elsewhere, but when I apologized, he replied that he would get a pension from his years as a member of Parliament, and besides, “we have to be lifers on these issues.”
By the time we hired him, we had already begun to acquire the financial support that enabled us to move to a new office on Fourth Avenue in Vancouver, in the heart of the Kitsilano neighborhood that had been a hippie magnet during the 1960s and '70s. It was an ideal location, and the building, built and owned by businessman Harold Kalke, is heated and cooled through geothermal heat-exchange pipes driven into the earth.
During the '60s and '70s, when I had an active genetics research program at UBC, the people in the lab worked and played together, a surrogate family. When I walked into our offices at the foundation, I felt a similar joy. Here were people earning a decent living wage and believing they were working toward a better world.
Jim came into the job with great vigor and soon launched projects as if we already had the money. I'm still hostage to my early years of poverty, but he had faith that we would raise the necessary funds. And he was right, but in the beginning, I was very nervous about all the spending. We were a brand-new, tiny organization with big plans; less than a year after opening our doors, we had a list of ten project areas we eventually wanted to cover.
If we were going to be effective in communicating with the public, we had to know something about what motivates people to change their behavior. After all, we would be going up against corporations such as the automobile, fossil fuel, forestry, and pharmaceutical industries, which spend billions on advertising and public relations. So we sponsored a conference in May 1995 and invited people who have studied and helped influence social change to share their insights; those talks were published as “Tools for Change,” a document that has infused the way we do our work.
These days we are bombarded by media stories and headlines crying that the economy is the bottom line and should dictate the way we behave, our priorities, and our sacrifices. That never made sense to me—we know we are biological creatures, that if we don't have clean air, water, soil and energy, we cannot lead healthy, productive lives—so we commissioned John Robinson, head of the Sustainable Development Research Institute at UBC, to write “Living Within Our Means,” which outlined humankind's fundamental needs and the real bottom line of sustainability.
AS WE BEGAN TO scope out our first project on fisheries, it became the model for later work. Salmon are iconic animals for aboriginal peoples on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of North America. If northern cod pulled Europeans to the shores of Newfoundland for five hundred years, the five species of Pacific salmon—sockeye, pink, chum, chinook (or spring), and coho—lie at the heart of Canada's coastal First Nations cultures, nourishing them physically and spiritually.
In thousands of rivers and streams along the west coast of North America, the return of salmon to their natal waters—in numbers that dwarf those of the fabled bison and passenger pigeons in the past and the caribou and wildebeest today—is one of nature's greatest spectacles. But salmon had disappeared from hundreds of rivers, and runs in many others were dropping steeply. Urban development, farming, logging, pollution, dams, and fishing had deeply affected populations that once flourished from California to Alaska; now they were maintained in large numbers only in B.C. and Alaska. As well, ocean-bottom trawling was destroying habitat crucial to marine biodiversity; a roe fishery to supply Japanese markets was devastating herring populations that were critical feed for many species, including salmon; salmon aquaculture was being touted as a replacement for wild populations.
We asked a group of distinguished experts to meet and discuss the nature of the problem, its primary causes and potential solutions. We then sought a more detailed analysis; Carl Walters, a world-renowned fisheries authority at the University of British Columbia, accepted our invitation to write a scientifically based evaluation of the state of Pacific salmon. Carl brought the analytic powers of computers to the fields of ecology and fisheries management and was known for his hard-nosed approach and fearlessness in telling it like it is. His report was extensively reviewed by scientists and fishermen before publication to ensure its accuracy and credibility.
The report, “Fish on the Line,” concluded that salmon runs were in trouble along the coast of B.C. It put the responsibility for the problems on the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), indigenous peoples, and commercial and sport fishers—in other words, on everyone with a stake in the future of the fish.
With so much finger-pointing, it upset everyone, as expected. All interest groups knew the fish were in trouble, but none was willing to give up its share of the bounty. The report was criticized bitterly, and the media played up the angry critics. The David Suzuki Foundation had a major impact in delivering the message that the salmon runs were in trouble, and that there was clearly a need for a different management strategy. Now, what could be done about it?
In our next study, Lynn Pinkerton, today a professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., and Marty Weinstein, adjunct professor at the UBC Fisheries Centre, both longtime workers in First Nations communities, identified common features in sustainable fisheries around the world. In all such cases, the resource was managed by the local fishing community, which not only was responsible for maintaining stocks but also was held accountable for their state, and the knowledge and experience of the fishers themselves provided the basis for the fishing practices. These findings were published in a report entitled “Fisheries That Work.”
Canada attempts to manage its Pacific and Atlantic fisheries from faraway Ottawa in Ontario and relies on government experts who are not free to state the scientific evidence in public or to make recommendations based on it; government scientists are under intense political pressure to provide information and advice that support the government of the day. The observations and advice of those who make a living on the ocean and in rivers and lakes are rendered marginal or ignored. Such an approach on the east coast of Canada has been catastrophic—the cod fishery, for example, has long since collapsed—yet DFO has been unresponsive to the knowledge of local fishers.
“Fisheries That Work” was a good-news report, giving lots of examples of what works elsewhere and answers to outstanding questions. It was well received by local fishing communities, but the study received almost no play in the media. Crisis and confrontation make stories, but good news is deemed to be boring.
Undaunted, we funded a group of First Nations, commercial fishers, tourism operators, and environmentalists in the village of Ucluelet on Vancouver Island to apply community management of the local fish. The jury is still out on whether local management of species of salmon that migrate long distances can work when they are intercepted in the ocean. As a model for other projects, our fisheries studies provided a good one—do the analysis, look for solutions, then apply what was learned.
Since then, the foundation has funded numerous fisheries projects, including University of Victoria biologist Tom Reimchen's seminal work on the biological marriage between salmon and the rain forest; a province-wide DSF-sponsored inquiry on salmon led by the eminent B.C. judge Stuart Leggatt; a report on the DFO's policy of licensing the killing of spawning herring just for the roe; and a challenge to salmon farming.
THE GROWTH OF SALMON farms on the west coast of British Columbia has been cancerous. Today, production of salmon from open netpens dwarfs the number of wild fish captured. But these developments have been accompanied by numerous problems, and our foundation has played a major role in publicizing the dangers.
To many people, salmon aquaculture seems the marine equivalent of farming on land—use the ocean currents to slosh through nets that confine large numbers of animals whose growth is sped by regular feeding. The premise is that we can improve on nature with greater survival, faster growth, and year-round availability of the fish. But as we are learning from experience with cattle, poultry, and hogs, feedlots create enormous problems of disease, inhumane conditions, and waste.
But salmon aquaculture is wrongheaded from the very start. For one thing, unlike cows, sheep, and pigs, the fish are carnivores. They must eat fish. If we don't raise lions or wolves for food, why do we grow salmon? Food fish like anchovies, herring, and sardines, which people in South America eat, are being depleted to make pellets to feed salmon. As well, vast quantities of feces accumulate beneath netpens; diseases and parasites like sea lice explode and spread to wild fish, and large numbers of alien Atlantic salmon—also being raised in west coast salmon farms—escape periodically into the Pacific. Sea lions, otters, eagles, seals, and other predators attracted to the concentrated fish in nets have been legally killed by feedlot operators to protect their “crop.” And the flesh of the farmed fish is contaminated with chemicals biomagnified from the feed fish, antibiotics, and dyes to color the flesh.
Aquaculture, like agriculture, must be a part of the food future for humanity, but it will be sustainable only when practiced according to principles that will ensure continued ecological, social, and personal health. Global health, environmental, and equity issues are poorly handled by advocates of salmon aquaculture, and chefs and the public in B.C. are catching on and showing signs of discriminating in their buying.
Ecological health also can be restored on a small, local scale. Salmon are at the center of one of our most gratifying projects, revitalizing the run to Musqueam Creek in Vancouver. In 1900, the area that now encompasses the city boasted more than fifty rivers, streams, and creeks, each with its own genetically distinctive races of salmon. Some waterways might have had fewer than a hundred spawners returning, others had hundreds of thousands, but together they supported millions of fish. The past century of human encroachment has meant creeks were filled in, streams diverted, and riverbanks cleared of vegetation and polluted as our needs trumped those of the fish. At the end of the twentieth century, only one stream in Vancouver still had wild salmon runs—Musqueam Creek.
The creek runs through the Musqueam Reserve on the west side of Vancouver, home of the Musqueam First Nation, but only a dozen or so salmon were making it back to spawn. In an area that is now heavily populated and includes many properties with riding stables, Musqueam Creek was under pressure from horses ridden through it, children playing in it, and the runoff from storm sewers and homes illegally hooked up to dump sewage into it.
In 1996, the David Suzuki Foundation was approached by the Musqueam people to help rehabilitate the creek. Willard Sparrow, grandson of the famous chief Edward Sparrow Jr., had become very concerned; in a way, the survival of that tiny salmon run seemed symbolic of the fate of his people. Could the old ways and the salmon they depend on be retained in an increasingly urban setting?
Nicholas Scapiletti was working for the foundation at the time and hit it off with Willard as the two of them began a campaign to raise money to clean up and protect “Vancouver's last salmon creek” and to educate people in the neighborhood. The Musqueam Watershed Restoration Project was begun to train Musqueam youth to care for the waterway, shore up its banks, create baffles to slow the water, plant trees along the edge, put up signs, and distribute informational flyers. Willard educated his people about the symbolic importance of the creek and got them to support a small group of stream keepers. Once, Willard was wading in the creek to check it when to his delight a woman on horseback spotted him and yelled, “Hey, the Musqueam are trying to bring the salmon back in that creek, so get out of there!” The neighbors had now taken ownership and pride in this small stream and were watching over it.
As Willard and Nick staged celebrations of the watershed, invited biologists to talk about biodiversity and nutrient flow, organized tree-planting days, and held salmon barbecues to mark the role of fish in our lives, the city and funding agencies found the restoration of Musqueam Creek irresistible. Not only did the duo get funding for the project, the city supported construction of a different kind of roadway in the surrounding area so that water could percolate back into the soil of the watershed instead of being sent down storm sewers to run into the ocean. The team even brought dead salmon from other runs and distributed them along the banks of the creek to return nutrients to the soil, as had happened naturally before “progress” intervened.
Musqueam Creek is on its way back to health; the number of returning fish rose to over fifty in 2004. Nature is incredibly generous when we give her a hand.
TARA WAS NAMED PRESIDENT of the foundation but was not paid for the long, often arduous hours she had put in to get it going. As projects were developed and staff began to pour out material, I was given credit for much of it because the organization carries my name, but in reality—as with the television shows I do—the foundation produces material through the hard work of a devoted team. Volunteers like Tara and me have been a crucial part of the organization's work and effectiveness; I have been amazed at the devotion and hours volunteers give, not just to us, but to so many important causes. They are part of the glue that holds society together.
As the foundation has taken on issues and projects, we also have become increasingly efficient in getting our message across. Our goal was to invest half of every foundation dollar in communication, since public education and awareness are crucial to our mandate of offering solutions. David Hocking, with long experience at Petrocan, came to us to head the communications team.
Having staff behind us also meant Tara and I were no longer feeling isolated or harried. If I was to talk to some special interest group or meet a political leader, the staff would often update background notes that made me so much more effective.
It is clear that the old ways of confrontation, protests, and demonstrations so vital from the 1960s through the '80s, have become less compelling to a public jaded by sensational stories of violence, terror, and sex. We need new alliances and partnerships and ways of informing people.
Tara delivering a speech as president of the David Suzuki Foundation
When the foundation was started, we were imbued with the sense of urgency implicit in the Worldwatch Institute's designation of the 1990s as “the Turnaround Decade.” The decade came and went. The world didn't change direction, but now the foundation has matured. We have earned a presence in the media, influence within the political and industrial community, and credibility with the public.