Reports and books

This report outlines a path ahead for more equitable, sustainable, and coordinated funding for Lower Fraser salmon. Report finds $91.6 million spent over 10 years for salmon habitat in the Lower Fraser River was inadequate and lacked coordination.

Bridging the gap between recognition and action in coastal ecosystems in southern British Columbia.

We assembled a team to assess water quality in the former Semá:th X̱ó:tsa (Sumas Lake) area of the Fraser Valley over a seven-week period after the floods. We collected water samples from 11 surface water sites and four groundwater sites for comprehensive contaminant analysis and a subsequent risk-based evaluation.

This report outlines a path ahead for more equitable, sustainable, and coordinated funding for Lower Fraser salmon. Report finds $91.6 million spent over 10 years for salmon habitat in the Lower Fraser River was inadequate and lacked coordination.

In 2017 researchers from the Martin Conservation Decisions Lab at the University of British Columbia and University of Victoria’s Baum Lab led a conservation decision-making exercise – Priority Threat Management (PTM).

As of 2018, more than one third of the unique populations of Fraser River salmon and steelhead are considered at risk of extinction. Additionally, there are more than 100 other species of conservation concern just within the Fraser estuary.

This is a crucial time for wild salmon that depend on the Fraser River. We identify systemic problems of governance and land use that have created this situation and offer six recommendations as next steps to put salmon and their habitat on a trajectory to ecological resilience.

The executive summary highlights the risks posed to wild salmon in the Lower Fraser River from a Trans Mountain pipeline or oil tanker spill. It finds there is no time of year when the effects of an oil spill would be negligible on salmon species in the Lower Fraser. It identifies the river’s unique features, the nature of diluted bitumen, and the failures of the TMX environmental assessment.

Our 2016 report, Our threatened Coast: Nature and Shared benefits in the Salish Sea demonstrates how the region’s biological diversity –its plants and animals- is captured in our values, has shaped our cultural identity and is linked to economic benefits in the billions of dollars. It considers what is at stake from a host of proposed coastal energy and shipping projects.

The potential consequences to wild salmon from Northern Gateway’s proposed oil tankers and oil terminal are not a risk worth taking.

This popular report discusses ecological implications of oil tankers on the BC coast. It stems from Raincoast’s five years of marine surveys but emphasizes the broader ecological context.