We’re longlining, not trawling, Nattivak says

We thought that the article that was written in the January 28 Nunatsiaq News was very good and very accurate except for one point.

Qikiqtarjuaq is not planning to fish with a factory freezer trawler but with a longline factory freezer vessel.

We understand this oversight as many people have made this mistake in the past, but we thought we should correct it as it is a major difference in the fishing approach between the community and the BFC.

There is a world of difference between the two fishing types. It is the Baffin Fisheries Coalition that is fishing and continues to fish with large factory freezer trawlers that are taking up to 30 tonnes a day of turbot in the waters just outside our community. Last year these vessels were allowed by DFO to take over two times the legal amount of small fish. With longliners, we will only take five to six tonnes a day of the more mature fish.

This is better for the environment and will allow us to have a healthy and sustainable fishery for years to come. We feel it is unfortunate that NTI, the Nunavut government and DFO support the BFC plan, but we have received support and encouragement from other communities for our plans and we are moving quickly ahead.

Also, as you know, Qikiqtarjuaq has 80 to 90 per cent unemployment and the BFC trawlers have only employed a few Inuit to date and have provided only a few jobs for our community. Some of our fishermen have said that they do not like working on BFC boats, have not been paid on time, and that they are not going to work on them in the future. Our boats will have mostly Inuit crew – 25 to 30 from our community – and will have the kind of work and cultural environment that we are used to.

We are not against the BFC, but when they and NTI came to Qikiqtarjuaq on Jan. 19, their goal was to get us to re-join the BFC and allow them to fish our 0B quota with their trawlers.

When the BFC was formed, they promised that they would be fishing only 60 per cent of their quota with trawlers and the remainder with longliners. At the Jan. 19 meeting, they said that last year they fished most of their quota (96 per cent) with trawlers and only 4 per cent with longliner or gill net vessels. In 2002, they said they fished 67 per cent of their quota with trawlers and 33 per cent with longline vessels, so it appears that their fixed-gear strategy is going down and their trawler strategy is increasing dramatically.

This is why we feel we must move now with our own longliner, because if this keeps up, the turbot will go the way of the cod fish down south.

Their eight stated BFC objectives at the Jan. 19 meeting also did not mention longline vessels, so the impression was that this has gone away and that they are favouring the factory freezer trawler vessel approach, but this may have been an oversight on their part and we do not want to speak for them, so maybe we shouldn’t be so critical on this point. They should be the ones answering this.

This is our fish and Inuit need to protect them from interests like the BFC who want to take as much as they can and leave us eventually with nothing. Sadly, this has been the history for Inuit for years and we need to take a stand and stop it now, so we are going fishing with our own boat that will be able to bring in the much-needed dollars and jobs for years to come without ruining the fishing grounds.

We have had to get our own licence because the NWMB has given the Nunavut groundfish licence to the BFC, which now only allows the BFC to fish our 0B quota. This licence will also allow Inuit to fish in waters that have not been open to Nunavut before, so we feel that we are doing something for all of Nunavut. Our licence is a Canadian-wide licence, which is unique to Nunavut.

We do realize that the BFC is trying to get a big business started, and we wish them luck, but we do not want to be part of their plans, which could ruin Inuit fishing grounds forever. We hope that the BFC changes their strategy and leaves some fish for Inuit before it’s too late.

Koalie Kooneeliusie
Chairman
Nattivak Hunters and Trappers Association
Qikiqtarjuaq