B.C.’s salmon guardian needs you to listen – before it’s too late

Ron MacLeod, former director-general of the Canadian Fisheries and Oceans Department is photographed at his home White Rock, British Columbia, Saturday, December 1, 2012.

(Rafal Gerszak for The Globe and Mail)

FISHERIES

B.C.’s salmon guardian needs you to listen – before it’s too late

MARK HUME

Vancouver, The Globe and Mail, Dec 02 2012

He’s 88 and admits to failing health, but Ron MacLeod’s mind remains as sharp as a well-honed fish hook and his passion for protecting salmon is undiminished.

Proof of that lies in a brilliant paper he has just written with long-time colleague Al Wood that he hopes will stir a public outcry against government.

This is an old warrior who is squaring up for one last fight. And politicians will ignore him at their peril.

His paper, “Epic Fail,” chronicles the decline of Pacific salmon stocks and warns that a total collapse – on the scale of the Atlantic cod catastrophe – is in the making, unless things change.

Mr. MacLeod, a former director-general of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, goes beyond doom-saying. He lays out the history of failed government policies that have propelled us to this point, and offers solutions.

Read more here

"This short paper is well written, easy to read and will help us all to understand how "we" (Canada) got to where we are as to fish and fisheries." - Jim Wilson, The Pacific Streamkeepers Federation

Read "Epic Fail" here.