MORATORIUM

The Association for the Preservation of the Eastern Shore has joined more than 116 organizations from across Nova Scotia to ask for an immediate moratorium on new licenses for open pen finfish aquaculture licences in the province.

The Association for the Preservation of the Eastern Shore (APES) is an organization consisting of hundreds of concerned residents and business people from a variety of sectors on the Eastern Shore, including the Sheet Harbour Chamber of Commerce, tourism operators, people in the building trades, fishermen and international marketers of lobster and other wild catch species, as well as representatives of various parks and wilderness groups.

In particular, we are concerned that three proposals by Scottish company, Loch Duart, and its Nova Scotia subsidiary, Snow Island Salmon, do not meet basic minimum standards set out by the aquaculture industry itself in consultation with the provincial and federal governments (Stantec 2009, Hargrave 2002). In addition, we see that an overwhelming number of peer-reviewed national and international scientific studies readily and repeatedly show a variety of serious environmental harms directly attributable to such poorly sited enterprises, and, as a consequence, may put a number of existing and potentially healthier sustainable industries on our shore at risk.  Finally, we have a number of concerns about what the lack of opportunity for citizen input and true public consultation in this process.

For these reasons, APES calls on the provincial government of Nova Scotia to establish a 5-year moratorium on open pen finfish aquaculture until the process for granting or renewing licences is transparent and repaired of its flaws, and until independent objective science and economic analysis can show that there will be no harm to existing industries and the coastal and estuarine environments of Nova Scotia.

To read a more detailed summary of reasons for taking such a precautionary approach to open cage finfish aquaculture, see the attached "Statement of Precautionary Principles" and other documents in this section.

What can you do? Sign the petition! Or look under the "To do" section of this website for other suggestions for things you can do or about how you can get involved.