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
Connectivity where the land meets the sea
Paquet, P.C., C.T. Darimont, F. M. Moola, and C. Genovali. 2005. Connectivity where the land meets the sea – preserving the last of the best. Wild Earth 14: 21-25 (Peer edited). View the paper in .PDF
Range expansion by moose into coastal temperate rainforests of British Columbia, Canada
Darimont, C.T., P.C. Paquet, T.E. Reimchen, and V. Crichton. 2005. Range expansion by moose into coastal temperate rainforests of British Columbia, Canada. Diversity and Distributions 11: 235-239. View the paper in .PDF
Predators in natural fragments: foraging ecology of wolves in British Columbia’s central and North Coast archipelago
Darimont, C.T., M.H.H. Price, N.N. Winchester, J. Gordon-Walker, and P.C. Paquet. 2004. Predators in natural fragments: foraging ecology of wolves of British Columbia’s central and north coast archipelago. Journal of Biogeography 31: 1867-1877. View the paper in .PDF
Crossroads: Economics, Policy and the Future of Grizzly Bears in British Columbia (2004)
Crossroads assembles a wide range of information from a variety of sources to present an overview of an important component of BC’s economy. The information and analysis relate to revenue figures for those industries relying on the presence of grizzly bears: grizzly hunting (as a component of guide outfitting) and grizzly viewing (as a component…
Journal of the Wolf Project – May 2003
This spring has sprung the 4th full season for the Rainforest Wolf Project and an opportunity for reflection. I think back on our early days – only Bella Bella’s Chester Starr (“The Lone Wolf”) and I were out in a tiny Raincoast boat exploring for wolves, guided by local knowledge, topographic maps, and a bit…
Foraging behaviour by gray wolves on salmon streams in coastal British Columbia
Darimont, C.T., T.E. Reimchen and P.C. Paquet. 2003. Foraging behaviour by gray wolves on salmon streams in coastal British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Zoology 81: 349-353. View the paper in .PDF