Cological and Economic Impact Assessment of Sablefish Aquaculture In

The goal of this study is to undertake an assessment of the potential ecological and economic effects of sablefish Anoplopoma fimbria farming in British Columbia (BC). Sablefish aquaculture is a topical issue in BC due to the prospect of a major sablefish hatchery planned for Salt Spring Island, which would produce juveniles for the intended BC industry. This report analyzes available information in an effort to inform policy makers and the general public if and how development should proceed. If a common thread can be found in the published works on this issue so far, it is that empirical data are in short supply. Ecological data regarding wild sablefish are rudimentary at best, and of course aquaculture data are nonexistent. As a result, authors, us included, rely to a great extent on the BC salmon aquaculture experience to frame the sablefish issues. While there will be many similarities, both economic and ecological, this is clearly not adequate to confidently flag the full array of emergent issues nor predict how they will manifest themselves. But clearly this is the sensible way to proceed in the given situation. The following are some of the key findings of this study: From an ecological perspective, the potential for negative interactions between wild and farm stocks is high. Further, because the sablefish knowledge base is narrow relative to that of salmon aquaculture, itself plagued with serious challenges, it is clear that timely diagnoses and successful remediation of the inevitable emergent problems is unlikely. We conclude that sablefish aquaculture development in BC is destined to proceed on a trial and error basis with coastal communities and BC’s marine environment exposed to undeterminable risk. A decrease in wild salmon landings followed the increase in salmon aquaculture. There was no corresponding decrease in wild salmon landings in Alaska, where a ban on salmon farming exists. A decrease in the price of sablefish will ultimately follow an increase in sablefish supply to the market from aquaculture. This decrease will be at the expense of both sablefish farmers and fishers in Canada but beneficial to sablefish fish consumers, which in this case are mainly Japanese. Thus, benefits are exported while costs are entirely absorbed within Canada. At low aquaculture production levels, small economic gains are possible if BC engages in sablefish farming under different ecological externality (impact) assumptions compared to salmon. However, gains quickly disappear as production increases towards anticipated levels. Rather surprisingly, our study shows that a sablefish farming ban in BC would actually be beneficial to the province, if BC wild sablefish landings can be marketed in a way that would allow the province’s landings to command a price premium of about 20-25%. From the experience of salmon farming in BC, it appears that sablefish farming is unlikely to add to (i) BC and Canada’s GDP, (ii) export earnings, and (iii) number of people employed in the sablefish sector of BC’s economy. Ecological and Economic Impact Assessment of Sablefish Aquaculture in British Columbia, Sumaila et al. 3