How Activity Systems Evolve: Making │ Saving Salmon in British Columbia

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe the history of a state-sponsored salmon enhancement project in British Columbia and to explicate the development of the former using cultural historical activity theory. We make thematic the notion of inner contradictions, which express themselves outwardly as a function of both quantitative and qualitative changes. We propose also that the Marxian notion of change of quality from quantity can fruitfully unpack how these dialectical units push activity systems forward.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article derives from the PhD work of the first author. It was conducted as part of a research project designed by the second author, who had obtained funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada that supported this research.

Notes

¹Known as the Department of Fisheries and Marine from the 1890s to 1930, and later the Department of Fisheries, Department of Fisheries and Environment, and finally Department of Fisheries and Oceans from 1977. We try to maintain these earlier nomenclatures of DFO in our account according to the relevant historical period.

²Production actions serve to maintain sufficient fish for harvests, whereas conservation/preservation measures have the narrower intention of rebuilding and protecting wild or at-risk populations. As for the third contradiction between artificial/technological and natural production, we think of this in terms of a very general one that contrasts the continued assistance of some form of technology versus relying on the given biological abilities of salmon to spawn and grow in the environment.

³See Table 1 for brief descriptions.

⁴Recruitment was erratic for it dropped to just 6,611 the following year and then rose to 25,255 in 1976 (Murray, 1984).

⁵Archival material from B. C. Archives, B.C. Environment & Land Use Committee Secretariat 1973–1980, GR1002 (hereafter ELUC), Box 37, SEP – General (1975–1980), Press statement by Hon. Roméo LeBlanc, March 24, 1975.

⁶ELUC, Box 36, SEP – Economic working group – Correspondence file 1(1975–1977), memo from D. J. Reid, Fisheries economist, to EWG, August 19, 1976.

⁷See ELUC, Box 36, SEP – Correspondence (1974–1978), letter from P. A. Larkin to J. R. MacLeod, Fisheries & Marine, May 20, 1975.

⁸See ELUC, Box 38, SEP – Board meetings [1978–1979], Executive summary B.C. Task Group Meeting #13, Annex IV, December 1–3, 1978, for comment about balance and DFE (1977a) for manipulation.

⁹Technology was said to be the “one positive factor in the future prospects of Pacific salmon” allowing fish culture to emerge from the dark ages (Department of Environment, 1974b, p. 6). The missing ingredient holding back the benefits of enhancement was immediate action for there was “no problem deciding what to do or how to do it” (Fraser, 1976, p. 6).

¹⁰This figure is a summation of the anticipated extra 50 and 140 million lb produced annually from Phase I and II, respectively, at no costs to the government (DFE, 1978b).

¹¹See University of British Columbia, Larkin P. A. Papers, Box 15, File 14 (Notes on Play It Again Sam, n.d.).

¹²Fish deficient in aggressive qualities favored by anglers.

¹³There are about 19 large single-type hatcheries (FOC, 2004c) and more than 120 smaller community-based ones in British Columbia and the Yukon (Gardner et al., 2004). Numbers always vary with closure of (underperforming) facilities.

¹⁴ELUC, Box 36, SEP – Economic working group – Correspondence file 2[1977], letter from G. Robinson, Special Projects Unit to J. O'Riordan, December 22, 1977.

¹⁵ELUC, Box 36, SEP – Economic working group – Correspondence file 2[1977], letter from E. H. Vernon, Asst Dy Minister of Conservation to J. O'Riordan, December 28, 1977.

¹⁶ELUC, Box 38, SEP – Board meetings [1978–1979], Salmonid enhancement board meeting No. 79-1, January 23, 1979.

¹⁷ELUC, Box 39, SEP – Task force – Correspondence [1974–1980], Draft records of B.C. task group meeting No. 6, April 30 – May 1, 1977.

¹⁸ELUC, Box 38, SEP – Public participation (PIP) – General [1977–1980], InfoSheet 4, October 12, 1976.

¹⁹ELUC, Box 38, SEP – Public participation (PIP) – General [1977–1980], Draft records of B.C. Task group meeting #3, January 15–16, 1977.

²⁰See foonote 4.

²¹Expensive in the sense of requiring a longer rearing time of up to 1 year in artificial environments like hatcheries before release.

²²Chided for behaving like an agency for social welfare and employment creation, a federal report recommended that the fisheries component of DFO refocus on the conservation, protection, and enhancement of fisheries (Task Force on Program Review, 1985). If these socioeconomic responsibilities were hived off to other government departments or subject to economic forces, then DFO could be liberated from any contradictions in its objectives.

²³We continue using the acronym SEP, as neither HEB nor HRSEP have caught on in everyday or official usage.

²⁴The literature is voluminous, but Waples (1999) is a good point of departure.

²⁵We do not want to belittle these volunteers or SEP staff. From our research, we have encountered an unusually high degree of commitment to their jobs, of wanting to do whatever humanly possible “for the fish,” as they have told us in so many ways.

²⁶We recall Jevon's Paradox, which states that as improvements in technology increase the efficiency with which a resource is used, the total consumption of that resource may escalate instead of decreasing.