Fraser River sockeye salmon: data synthesis and cumulative impacts

assumed that there is no potential for cumulative effects and a CEA will not be required (Greig2010, Golder Associates Ltd. 2008).Greig and Duinker have argued repeatedly that this narrow definition of cumulative effects isinherently flawed (e.g. Duinker and Greig 2006, 2007; Greig and Duinker 2008). They argue thatindividual projects with insignificant effects or different types, timing, or location of effects, maystill contribute to significant cumulative effects (also Berube 2007). CEA should be focused onVECs rather than projects because ultimately the cumulative effects on VEC sustainability arethe effect of greatest concern. The aggregate stress on a VEC includes all projects anddevelopments (whether or not they meet the requirements for EIAs or CEAs) as well as manynatural drivers – a VEC must endure all these stressors cumulatively. It is the net consequence ofthe aggregate stresses that determines the status and sustainability of a VEC (Greig et al. 2003).Cumulative effects are the “only real effect worth assessing” and need to be assessed at the scaleof ecological regions (Duinker and Greig 2006).Although the present research project is not an environmental impact assessment project, it doesaddress several of the criticisms of the standard approach to “cumulative effects” in Canada.First, this project is definitively centered on a focal VEC – Fraser River sockeye salmon. Second,this project uses the relevant ecological regions as a study area – the Fraser River watershed andestuary, the Strait of Georgia, and the marine migratory extent of Fraser River sockeye. Third,the analyses include a large range of factors hypothesized to be contributors to the decline in theVEC and these factors are all considered to potentially contribute to cumulative impacts on theVEC even though they differ substantially in type, timing and location of their primary effects.Another major difference between a CEA and the present research is the temporal direction offocus. A CEA is explicitly future focused. Environmental assessment is an exercise indetermining different possible future scenarios and examining the potential impacts of actionstaken today across those possible futures. In environmental assessment, past actions cannot bechanged and are only useful for discovering and calibrating cause-and-effect relationships amongactions and VEC-consequences. However, the Cohen Commission is explicitly focused on thepast. It is inherently concerned with retrospective analyses to determine the magnitude andnature of those cause-and-effect relationships. The ultimate goal of such knowledge isprospective - to facilitate more strongly informed future management decisions. However, thecritical first step is to improve our retrospective understanding of the fundamental relationshipsbetween impact factors and VEC sustainability (Fraser sockeye productivity and recruitment).7