Excellent.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak this afternoon. I'm representing the Nova Scotia Salmon Association. The association is a leader in the conservation and wise management of salmon and trout resources in Nova Scotia. The association is a province-wide organization that works with the regional DFO office, on both science and management, through the NSLC Adopt A Stream program, which it runs on behalf of all recreational anglers in Nova Scotia.

The association currently has 17 direct affiliate groups, with over 1,000 members, and works with a growing number of active river groups. Funding for this program comes from two main sources, the Nova Scotia sport fish habitat fund and the NSLC. The Nova Scotia sport fish habitat fund is a source of dedicated funding contributed by anglers via a levy on the recreational fishing licences. In Nova Scotia this currently comes only from freshwater licences, as there is no licensing for the coastal fishery. Those are some potential funds that could be directed toward the restoration habitat that Adopt A Stream is currently taking on. Other funding for projects comes from DFO's recreational fisheries conservation partnership program, which is fantastic, the fish habitat compensation through the Fisheries Act and HAT offsetting, and other corporate donations and support.

In Nova Scotia, salmon fishing is still a healthy contributor to local economies where rivers flow into the Northumberland Strait and into western Cape Breton Island. The recreational fishery in the province is worth an estimated $88 million, according to a 2013 study. However, the reality is that the issues surrounding wild Atlantic salmon are the same issues that are affecting our recreational fishery in the province. Healthy fish populations are the key to creating a strong and viable recreational fishery. Some of these issues include the loss and degradation of habitat and fish passage as a result of culvert work, dams, in-stream work, and poor land usage. Further impacts come from acidification and rising aluminum levels in our rivers and effects from open net pen aquaculture on the adjacent river systems.

Finally, one of the issues impacting our wild Atlantic salmon here in Nova Scotia is the cuts to DFO's staffing and funding, combined with policy changes over the last five years that have led to some of the offloading of conservation activities, such as training, advising, and other tasks on NGOs and programs like Adopt A Stream, local river associations, and volunteer groups who are taking on some of this work.

Without proper habitat and fish passage, the salmon and trout populations cannot grow to the levels needed to sustain an active recreational fishery in the province. Loss and degradation of habitat caused by poorly planned development, inadequate impact assessment, poor enforcement, and lack of expert resources are some of the key issues we need to address in order to overcome this. This could result in increased productivity and contribute significantly to the recovery of endangered salmon and trout in the province.

The NSLC Adopt A Stream program is currently involved in all habitat restoration work in the province. At present this includes planning, design, oversight, and offsetting administered by the program. In order to meet the province's habitat restoration design, watershed planning, and biological and technical needs, the program needs DFO as a partner. DFO needs to help us by redeveloping its habitat restoration expertise and allowing funding for staff to provide restoration design and expert advice to community groups and offsetting projects. This needs to be combined with long-term funding for the NSSA's NSLC Adopt A Stream program as the basis for salmon habitat and stock restoration implementation. We really need that partnership in order to make that effort successful.

All of Nova Scotia's rivers suffer from physical habitat problems that are limiting productivity for salmon and trout. Fish passage and habitat access is one issue that is currently limiting productivity. We have over 600 dams, fewer than 100 functioning fishways, and tens of thousands of culverts that either do not let fish pass, are partial barriers, or do not meet current standards for fish passage in the province. The NSLC Adopt A Stream program now is providing expert advice on culvert guidelines, developing fish passage mitigation techniques, which it's implementing across the province, providing advice on fishway repairs, and convincing landowners to allow the program to help them fix those when those fishways fall into disrepair.

DFO fisheries protection could use its enforcement powers to require owners of these fishways and culverts to comply with design guidelines and maintain these structures on their property. Regulatory backup and management decisions from the responsible department will give the NGOs the support they need to achieve success and increase fish passage.

The first priority when we look at habitat restoration is to make sure that the fish are able to reach the habitats that they need to complete their life cycle and become full-grown fish. Part of this is for them to be able to get up the watershed as far as possible and in order to do that, we need clear fish passage.

In addition, acid rain may be one of the single largest contributors to the decline of wild Atlantic salmon in Nova Scotia. In the southern upland, pH levels in the rivers have dropped well below those required for salmon rearing. Aluminum levels now exceed maximum levels for parr in some rivers and exceed maximum levels for smolt in most rivers in the region.

Similarly, in the inner Bay of Fundy, salmon are listed as endangered under the Species at Risk Act. Currently the DFO biodiversity centre is maintaining the genetic stock in the region. This needs to be supported until reasons for the loss in this area can be better understood and until mitigation actions can be taken to help us increase those pH levels and restore fish stocks in that area.

If we are to counteract the effects of acid rain in Nova Scotia and return our rivers to productive sites for salmon and trout fishery, there needs to be a commitment to long-term funding and support for liming projects focused on the watersheds with the highest value. In the 2013 southern upland recovery plan, DFO identified 13 rivers that would be prime candidates for liming in that area, and it would really help us bring those populations back to life.

The West River acid mitigation project is managed by the Nova Scotia Salmon Association and is currently the only large-scale liming project under way in Nova Scotia. This year it celebrates its 10th year of liming and has demonstrated that liming can have a positive impact on Nova Scotia's rivers. Liming on the West River alone has restored the brook trout fishery in the area and raised the salmon smolt count from 2,100 in the beginning to 10,000 per year over that 10-year span.

Proper habitat, acceptable fishways, and water quality are all important factors in restoring wild fish populations and contribute to the creation of a sustainable recreational fishery for Nova Scotia.

In addition to the environmental factors at work in Nova Scotia, open net pen aquaculture has been demonstrated to have a major effect on the adjacent rivers and is a contributor to the overall decline of wild Atlantic salmon. The impact of escapees, disease, and parasites from aquaculture sites have significant impacts on wild fish. This occurs through things such as interbreeding and the spread of disease and parasites to fish which have already been weakened in rivers where acidification has damaged the fish population and contributes to the overall increased mortality due to those impacts that we're getting when we have those big aquaculture sites in our oceans.

In order to protect our wild fish, enforced regulations need to be put in place to protect the coastal ecosystems against the impacts to salmon, trout, and other critical marine species such as lobster and other species that are in that ecosystem and to make it all work nicely to grow our salmon and fish populations. This should include zoning to protect rivers on the southern upland. They are already severely damaged by acidification. In Nova Scotia the Doelle-Lahey report that was released last year provided some very comprehensive recommendations for how those risks could be mitigated. The NSSA fully supports the implementation of those in full with support from DFO. It's the only way that we make those regulations actually stick.

Successfully addressing these issues would result in increased productivity and contribute significantly to the recovering potential of endangered populations. The Nova Scotia Salmon Association and affiliates are working to address these concerns, but more substantive gains in conservation and restoration requires the increased involvement and commitment through a DFO partnership with the NGOs to truly affect the wild fish populations in Nova Scotia in a way that will allow us to restore and maintain a recreational fishery.

We need to put the fish first. We need to take a comprehensive view of the issues and employ management techniques that address all the stressors. Only then will we see a strong and positive response in Nova Scotia.

Thank you.