Hard of Herring Tony Pitcher, Mimi Lam, Matthias Kaiser, April (SGaana Jaad) White, and Evgeny Pakhomov

Over the past 150 years, herringan iconic small, silvery fishhas had a profound influence on the ecology, economy, and culture of Canada's Pacific coast. British Columbia Coastal First Nations celebrate the crucial ecosystem role of these "silver darlings," which provide sustenance for many marine mammals, predatory fish, and seabirds, andthrough their eggs at spawning timeeven terrestrial species such as wolves, raccoons, and bears. This awareness of an integrated ecosystem is displayed in much First Nations art, including the work of one of us, Haida artist April (SGaana Jaad) White. Collaborating with our scientific team, she produced a series of hand-pulled serigraphs ("Herring People") depicting the interconnectedness of herring with beings in all of the natural realmsundersea, earth, and sky. The artwork shown in Figure 1 features herring and the humpback whale. It's one of eight images of a silvery herring cloaking and nurturing other important species in the ecosystem: humpback whale, dolphin/porpoise, dogfish/ shark, sea lion, chinook salmon, eagle, and male and female humans. Despite the importance of these silver darlings, a dysfunction in governance of both the cultural and the ecological aspects of herring fisheries in western Canada has led to conflict in its management. As we reflect on the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation and look forward to the future, we envisage a path toward improved fishery.

Figure 1. Two artistic representations of the ecological role of herring, used in interviews and community consultations in Haida Gwaii concerning values related to herring fisheries: upper panel: "Hunger Games" by Haida artist April (SGaana Jaad) White, representing the interconnected food web of orca, chinook salmon, and herring (including a red herring); lower panel: "Herring People: Humpback Whale," one of a set of eight serigraph images depicting the interconnectedness of herring with its predators from the undersea, earth, and sky. Haida artist April (SGaana Jaad) White.

management that could enhance the value of herring to First Nations, to the fishing industry, and for the marine ecosystem, so that this "little fish that could" may once again recover to support the many animals and people who depend upon it. Traditionally, and still today, many west coast First Nationssuch as the Haida, Heiltsuk, and Nuu-chah-nulthwelcome herring to provide the first fresh food after winter. In early spring, the fish gather in huge inshore shoals to spawn on kelp, an important traditional source of First Nations' food. Kelp fronds or hemlock branches are placed in "ponds" in the water, and ripe herring are herded to spawn upon them. This Aboriginal technique represents one of the few non-lethal fishing methods around the world; the spawned eggs on kelp fronds are collected, leaving the adult fish unharmed to return and spawn another year. This herring spawn on kelp, known as "k'aaw" in the Haida language, was eaten in spring village feasts in Haida Gwaii. Today, although some spawn on kelp is usually harvested, large Haida community events are rarely celebrated, given the depleted herring stocks of northern BC. Throughout the year, herring were traditionally caught with nets from shore and wooden rakes from canoes and spread out on wooden racks to dry in the wind like salmon. These dried fish could be eaten when needed, thus sustaining the diets of First Nations during challenging seasons and years.

Commercial herring fisheries did not begin until 1888 and remained small for about twenty years, but soon thereafter came into conflict with Aboriginal uses (See Figure 2). The commercial fleets initially obtained large catches from semi-urban areas by setting seine nets from small steam-powered vessels. The herring were originally destined to be drysalted or sometimes to become fertilizer, but they soon began serving additional small local markets for smoked ("kippers"), pickled ("roll mops"), and fresh herring in Canada's west coast cities. The 1930s saw the introduction of a European industrial technique of cooking the herring carcasses to produce refined oil and fishmeal, herring fishmeal production often sharing factory facilities (and ownership) with salmon canneries. In the 1950s, foreign trawler fleets, mostly Russian, also began fishing herring close to shore in BC, adding to increasingly serious overfishing by locate large fishmeal plants. This massive fishing pressure precipitated a collapse of the herring stocks and led to a coastwide closure of the BC fishery by the federal government between 1968 and 1971.

During the closure, the herring population recovered enough to be opened to support a new lucrative commercial fishery for the eggs of spawning herring, which is still in operation today. The eggs were exported to a largely Japanese market that opened up in the wake of a collapse of the once massive Hokkaido herring stocks. In addition to

Key to plot labels Fertilizer = herring caught to be used as fertilizer spread on agricultural fields

Dry Salted = salted preserved herring for consumption (local and export)

Local Food = fresh, smoked, and pickled herring

Reduction = herring caught by local fleets with carcasses cooked to produce fishmeal

Foreign Fleets = herring caught by foreign fleets, mostly Russian

Collapse and Closure = collapse of herring stocks and closure mandated by Canadian government

Roe = fishery for ripe herring eggs

Commercial SOK = spawn on kelp (SOK) and related product

Figure 2. The history of catches from the British Columbia commercial herring fishery, showing major changes in products and management.1

spawn on kelp, ripe eggs ("roe") are stripped from female herring immediately after they are caught at seaeither in specialized shaken gill nets or, mainly, by highly mechanized purse seine boats. Both male and female carcasses from this "roe fishery" are then discarded or sent for fishmeal or export. Younger Japanese have not acquired the same taste as the older generation, for whom this food was part of their culture. Consequently, in recent years, roe prices have fallen, reducing some of the pressure on Canada's herring stocks. Today, a local demand for fresh herring as food has emerged largely from European and Asian immigrants. The demand is only partially served by a small recreational fishery and popular annual charity sales in early winter. Small amounts of herring are also caught for bait to be used by the salmon and halibut fisheries. The current herring fishery from depleted stocks is relatively small, thus providing an opportune moment to gather local support for a natural herring recovery and more sustainable fisheries management.

And yet, conflicts between First Nations and the commercial roe herring and spawn-on-kelp fisheries have persisted and have even become more intense. In 2014 and 2015, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) reopened commercial herring fisheries in the north and the central BC coast, despite the failure of stocks to rebuild and against the recommenddations of First Nations and the government's own scientists. In the case of Haida Gwaii, the Haida Nation filed and won an injunction from the Supreme Court of Canada that mandated the continued closure of the commercial herring fishery, citing the potential harm to the herring and to Haida Aboriginal rights and title.2 In the case of the central coast, the Heiltsuk Nation mounted a well-publicized campaign of civil disobedience that resulted in DFO cancelling the herring fishery opening. The conflict is not over, but, in 2016, under a new federal government, the Pacific herring fishery has remained closed until any recovery is clearly measured, as per local First Nations preferences and scientific recommendations.

At the heart of the herring conflict lies an absence of responsible fisheries governance in Canada, as measured against international social, fiscal, and ecological criteria for sustainability. One issue is the lack of equitable distribution of benefits from the fishery. The highly profitable modern herring fleets have moved from an owner-driver model toward corporate ownership, where ownership, procedures, fixed fish prices, and loans are effectively determined by the political and financial influence of just one processor. Therefore, policy and regulation by the government fisheries agency has been "captured" by the large-scale fishery industry. A similar dysfunction in governance in the 1960s led to a failure to rein in the herring fleet serving the fishmeal plants, which almost destroyed the resource. BC herring populations were actually saved in 1968 after local small-scale herring fishermen (like Joe Bauer from Steveston, BC) voted to stop fishing because they were alarmed that stocks might be completely depleted within a matter of weeks. The federal government eventually responded to this by mandating a coastwide herring fishery closure. Failure to effectively reflect the constitutional public ownership of marine resources in Canadian fisheries policy has been accompanied by a tendency to privatize the resource through the introduction of rights-based quotas and market-driven licence holding. This pernicious process of privatization has effectively abrogated Canadian public trust in fisheries management.

So, in light of past regulatory failures, what hope might we place in the future?

First, values and ethics should be explicitly addressed in any discussions of how natural resources are managed for society, and the ultimate use of these resources should be a factor in any policy equation. All too easily, monetary values trump all other considerations. The cultural importance of Canada's west coast herring to the Haida First Nation was assessed in a series of interviews on Haida Gwaii led by Dr. Mimi Lam, revealing the primacy of two values: respect and responsibility. Incorporating these values into policy decisions is a new venture and challenges not only decision-makers but also scientists. New values-based methods and appraisal tools are needed. One such approach measures how people's values accord with management by asking them to place a set of cards representing their ranked values onto images of scenarios that represent alternative policy options for the fishery: for example, in Haida Gwaii, many preferred a scenario in which the roe herring fishery was closed, at least until stocks had almost fully recovered.

Second, we need to employ the best science available to us. Like most fish, herring swim to their birthplace to spawn. Yet this "local" biology is not well reflected in Canada's herring fishery management, which is based on larger spatial scales, unlike in other countries with herring fisheries. Tagging herring, a tricky procedure for such delicate little fish, has been carried out since the 1930s. Evidence from taggingand, more recently, from DNA sequencing and chemical diaries of the herrings' local environment written in their ear bonesnow confirms that Pacific herring home to a general spawning area within a few kilometres. This new scientific understanding is critical, as it implies that fishing quotas should be set separately for each local stock. When this is not done, small local stocks that can be fished as part of a larger-scale quota can collapse, as they are not easily replaced by herring from elsewhere. The history of BC herring includes the extirpation of many of these small local stocks that never recovered from the massive collapse in the 1960s, resulting in a serious loss of traditional food for many BC First Nations.

Third, we need to address dysfunctional governance and regulatory issues. Among maritime nations, Canada is unique in that all marine waters within our two-hundred-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) are controlled by the federal government. Canadian provinces have no inshore "territorial waters," unlike, for example, European countries, and American and Australian states, all of which have local jurisdiction over three, six, or twelve nautical miles from their coasts. If Canada were ever to adopt the world standard in this respect, fishery conflicts with First Nations, such as those surrounding our herring, might be resolved through co-management arrangements with provincial and regional governments. The implementation of this "subsidiarity principle" has the potential to be more responsive to local needs, as exemplified by improvements in the local collaborative management of forest resources in Haida Gwaii and inshore herring fisheries in Alaska. Ultimately, we must work toward a collaborative governance of living natural resources that is informed by both science and societal values.

Herring is a little fish that has reflected much of the 150-year maritime history of the people of western Canada. It is iconic of the holistic value our natural resources have in different aspects of our lives. Robust and culturally sensitive herring management programs are currently underway through the collaborative efforts of scientific researchers and the Haida and Heiltsuk nations. We are in the process of investigating how the local ecosystem and stakeholders interact with, and are impacted by, the herring fishery, with the aim of improving the management of this valuable fish.

Reconciliation between First Nations and the federal government is presently being played out in a hopeful fashion, trickling down into Canadian life and culture, and reflected in a vibrant art and an integrated understanding of how to promote healthy societies and natural systems. As the future unfolds, we should finally learn to respect, conserve, and use these "silver darlings" wisely, as an example of the kind of balanced social and ecological systems we aspire to. -

1.How do Indigenous relationships with nature differ from European relationships with nature, as demonstrated by some of the historical developments described in these articles? How would Canadian environmental policies change if they were more informed by Indigenous perspectives on nature?

2.Based on the readings, would you say that traditional Indigenous perspectives on nature are compatible or in tension with scientific understandings of nature? Why?