Canada's salmon-farming industry needs a self-policing system that will preserve wild fish stocks and enhance its global competitiveness, says a leading scientist.

"The answer is a production system that regulates itself," says John Volpe, a University of Victoria biologist.

"No place in the world, with any kind of resource-management (or) resource-extraction industry, has the model of the third-party policeman ever worked."

Although the B.C. government recently issued an indefinite moratorium on applications and licences for open-net salmon farms in northern coastal waters, Volpe says it will not make a difference to the plight of wild salmon in more southern waters, nor benefit consumers.

"It telegraphs a positive message," says Volpe. "However, it's rather hollow in what it's actually providing. There were no plans (for new salmon farms) in the area that has been set aside."

Many scientists say sea lice on farmed salmon are decimating wild stocks as they swim past farming pens. However, authors of reports commissioned by aquaculture companies argue the risk is much lower.

Ian Roberts, a spokesman for Campbell River-based Marine Harvest Canada, the country's largest aquaculture company, says the industry is actually helping to reduce pressure on wild stocks.

"We produce 80,000 tonnes (of farmed salmon) in the industry a year in B.C.," he says. "I believe that is a benefit to wild stocks."

Marine Harvest Canada has also taken out newspaper ads that claim lice are minimal on its fish.

Volpe, who contributed to a study that found wild-salmon mortality rates range from nine to 95 per cent depending on the amount of sea lice present on a farm, says a self-policing production system would penalize bad decisions through reduced profitability. He adds the only way to currently maintain profitability is to exploit fish stocks to the maximum while reducing production costs.

Halifax-based fisheries scientist Jennifer Ford's study of the Broughton Archipelago on the B.C. central coast, where approximately 30 fish farms are located, has estimated wild salmon will be extinct within four generations.

On average globally, says Ford, who works for the Ecology Action Centre, fish farms reduce local wild salmon stocks by 50 per cent.

"We actually found more than half (died) in most cases," says Ford, referring to another study she has published that includes the East Coast.

"We don't have commercial salmon stocks anymore," says Ford.

"All of the salmon stocks have declined to the point that commercial fishing is closed through the whole North Atlantic."

She says it's important to recognize that the commercial and recreational fisheries are larger than the salmon-farming industry in B.C. Aquaculture is also having a devastating effect on wild salmon in the Maritimes, she adds, although acid rain is the primary cause of their deaths.

The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR) has welcomed the B.C. moratorium, but condemned the decision to allow open-net farms in the south. Catherine Stewart of the Living Oceans Society, which is part of CAAR, says open-net farms pose a threat to the commercial-fishing, sport-fishing and tourism sectors, which depend on wild salmon.

Canadian salmon farmers already face tough competition globally, as Chilean, Scottish and Norwegian operators can produce a cheaper product. "We will, frankly, never be able to compete with Chile or Norway," says Volpe. "Nor do we want to, I think, because then the (ecological and social) costs would be extraordinary."

Marine Harvest's Roberts, whose company operates in those countries, notes a commercially viable, salt-water closed-containment system does not exist, and on-land pens require too much energy and leave too large an environmental footprint.

The company conducted a $1.3-million biological and economic analysis on six bag-type systems and six conventional net pens that found "biologically, things were the same" but the bag system cost 40 per cent more to produce fish, mostly because of higher energy charges.

Out of Marine Harvest's 11 sites in the Broughton Archipelago, four are empty of fish during the current wild-salmon migration period and seven other sites have been treated with Slice, a product that eliminates sea lice. Each pen holds 500,000 fish on average.

Former commercial fisherman Des Nobles of the T. Buck Suzuki Foundation, which is also part of CAAR, predicts the moratorium will not affect wholesale or consumer prices.

"To be perfectly honest, the price of salmon is absolutely ridiculous," he says, referring to low rates paid to commercial fishermen. "I cannot believe what these guys are being paid today. We got these prices 20 years ago (or) 25 years ago," he says.

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)