Shifting salmon policy
Photo by Alex Harris.
Ecosystems are complex. They are communities of living organisms connected through interacting processes and features on the land, in water, and between the two. Yet BC’s antiquated environmental policy doesn’t reflect this. Colonial society governs ecosystems by siloing them into distinct ministries and resources instead of reflecting the interconnected nature of habitats that make them function in the living world. This “siloed decision making”is the root cause of many of the ecological challenges we face today.
Our policy goals
1. Manage fisheries for ecosystems
- Set salmon harvest at levels that optimize the benefits of spawning salmon to watersheds and wildlife.
- Shift away from historic management paradigms that minimize the number of spawning salmon reaching rivers and maximize harvest (called Maximum Sustainable Yield). Move towards fisheries management that meets salmon spawning targets that are ecologically based, not harvest-based.
- Shift harvest toward selective terminal fisheries (conducted in or near the rivers of origin) that respect the ‘place-based’ nature of salmon, and optimize the benefits to ecosystems, Indigenous cultures, and local communities.
2. Implement ecological-based governance
- Conservation planning and a commitment to sustainability that looks 7 generations ahead.
- A “whole-of-government” approach that implements shared solutions by Indigenous, federal, provincial, and municipal governments to achieve salmon recovery from inland watersheds and rivers, to the open ocean.
- Governance that honours Aboriginal rights and title, inherent Indigenous jurisdiction and law, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).
- Sustainable funding strategies for watershed-scale restoration and planning.
3. Advance land-use policies that prioritize the health of wild salmon and biodiversity
- Zoning that bolsters functioning watersheds and riparian habitat (i.e.protect natural features, limit impervious surfaces, reduce urban sprawl, adopt nature-based solutions).
- Forestry policy that prioritizes salmon health by restricting clear-cutting in salmon watersheds, and incentivizes a sustainable, second or third-growth forest economy.
- Climate adaptation policy that incentivizes nature-based solutions including natural shorelines, intact riparian areas, unrestricted floodplains, managed retreat, and use of rain-gardens in urban areas.
Our recent reports
Recent articles
Cougars: BC’s neglected carnivore
In anticipation of the first provincial management plan for cougars, Raincoast Conservation Foundation released the report, British Columbia’s Neglected Carnivore: a conservation assessment and conservation planning guide for Cougars.
Government failing to protect big cats, conservation group says
By Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
January 19, 2011
Trophy hunting and habitat loss are putting B.C.’s cougar population at risk and provincial policies do not adequately protect the big cats, says a new report by three scientists from the Raincoast Conservation Foundation…
Cougars: BC’s neglected carnivores
In anticipation of a provincial management plan for cougars, Raincoast released the report on our neglected carnivore:
DFO seeks to undo important precedent for at-risk species
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 17, 2011
VANCOUVER – Environmental groups vowed today to fight DFO’s appeal of a decisive and precedent-setting Federal Court ruling that declared that DFO must protect critical habitat of killer whales…
Report: British Columbia’s neglected carnivores
A conservation assessment and conservation planning guide for cougars.
Is BC’s pink salmon fishery sustainable?
Raincoast and three other BC ENGO’s have critiqued the proposal by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) to certify BC’s commercial pink salmon fishery as sustainable.