Speaking of sustainability, we in B.C. own one resource that might be rated equal with all our agricultural activities, and that is the wild salmon of  Canada's western coast and rivers.

Without costing us anything, neither feed nor pesticides nor fuel, they look after themselves and bring themselves back for us and all of nature to live on and by. Truly they are a gift of God to Canada and the whole world flowing through the portals of B.C.   

But are we treating that gift with due gratitude and respect?

Perhaps we feel that salmon are primarily a concern of the West Coast, not of ourselves in the interior? Yet B.C. is Canada's westernmost province: the coast, the fish, the fishermen are Canada's but, firstly, they are B.C.'s, the interior and exterior all one.

If we are a democracy it is we people, all of us who live here, who share a first pride and a responsibility for those salmon to all the rest of Canada, and to the world.

My fisherman brothers were able to support and advance both themselves and the family of their parents with the salmon they caught. My ties keep me well concerned with the tribulations that the salmon are subjected to from the ministries to which they are entrusted: I once saw it with my own eyes, but now from afar I can still see from eyes I trust, knowing where trust and concern comes from.

And I have to say now that the wild salmon and all their dependants are being absolutely betrayed by both the federal and provincial government.

If we cannot stir ourselves to be vitally concerned about this, then we might as well forget all pretension to sustainability, or even to real patriotism, for we share in a betrayal of our land and God-given resources.

I refer to facts as presented in the sites listed below. Please, read from one whose hand is on the pulse of what is happening. Compare and judge it all you can, judge whether to trust the words of one who has spent years of single-minded devotion to the subject, a biologist whose peers and friends are among both fishermen and internationally acknowledged scientists, or trust the words of the paid reps of that undiscerning body over our heads of whom we know all too well.

E-mail references: gorbuscha@qmail.com; wildorca@island.net; salmonaresacred.org.