Building and Activating Wild Salmon Defenders

Education and outreach have been central to our salmon farming work over the years.  We have built a diverse alliance composed of environmentalists, First Nations, fishermen (both commercial and sport), labour and faith groups, tourism operators and more, all of whom are dedicated to the removal of salmon farms.  In 2020, we sent his Open Letter to the Prime Minister and Premier of British Columbia, in which the sectors came together in support of the First Nations Leadership Council's demand that salmon farms be removed from BC waters, starting with the Discovery Islands.

It seems the government heard that call; the Discovery Islands farms will be fully decommissioned by June, 2022. The prohibition on re-stocking them meant that the Wild Salmon Narrows was clear of farmed fish during the 2020 salmon outmigration, for the first time in 30 years.  We look forward, come 2022 when those wild sockeye return to spawn, to seeing the first signs of rebuilding in Fraser River stocks, which were heavily impacted by Discovery Islands farms.

This year, we broadened our outreach internationally: these multinationals aren't going to quit until every single country says 'no' to open netpen salmon farms.  We are pleased to announce the formation of Global Salmon Farm Resistance, an alliance of individuals and groups from 13 nations i9mpacted or threatened by salmon farming. The new alliance's first joint act is this Open Letter to Canada's Political Leaders.