In the Media

It sounds implausible but Canadian aquaculturists have actually been arrested by government officials for "illegal fishing" while harvesting fish that exist chiefly because of the culturing efforts of their owners. The police have refused to lay theft charges against people who rustle aquaculturists' fish stocks because their property rights are so muddy, it is not at all clear that they own what has been stolen.

Dans sa chronique régulière dans La Presse, le plus grand quotidien de langue française de l’Amérique du Nord, le président de AIMS, Brian Lee Crowley observe que, dans les faits, l'aquaculture canadienne est contrôlée par une bureaucratie inepte et lourde, ne voyant que le développement économique à court terme et disposant d'un pouvoir discrétionnaire qui plie volontiers devant la force politique d'intérêts établis. Si la discrétion administrative peut s'exercer de manière si ample en matière d'aquaculture, c'est en partie parce qu'il n'existe pas de statuts fédéraux ou provinciaux au Canada touchant cette pratique.

As a result of a combination of rising wealth, rising population and rising technological sophistication, the very relationship that mankind enjoys with the seas is being fundamentally altered. Nowhere is this transformation clearer than in aquaculture, which rose from nothing to a US$30-billion industry worldwide last year. The prestigious Economist magazine recently featured an aquaculture cover story called the Blue Revolution, intentionally suggesting a parallel with the Green Revolution, which hugely increased world agricultural production and efficiency at the end of the last century. Aquaculture is set to become a vigorous and lucrative industry for Canada’s coasts. Yet “fencing” this last frontier is hampered by a property rights regime intended for the wild fishery, rather than agriculture, which aquaculture more closely resembles.