At the HELIT TŦE SȽOṈ, ET (Let the Herring Live) Forum in February 2025, First Nations and environmental organizations gathered to discuss the restoration of the Salish Sea’s distinct herring populations. The aim of the event was to collaborate on strategies to bring vitality back to communities for whom herring was a foundational species. 

Event Turnout

There were over 220 attendees from around the Strait of Georgia (SOG)—Canada and US. Representatives came from: 13 First Nations, 27 non-governmental organizations, 6 post-secondary institutions, 5 governmental and political affiliations, 3 eco-tourism businesses, and a myriad of other community members (see lists below for more information). The keynote speaker was Chief Ray Harris, Stz’uminus (Chemanius) First Nation, Salish Sea Institute advisor and herring fisher. In addition, Dr. Shannon Waters, the Deputy Provincial Health Officer, and Dr. Eric Yoshida, professor and researcher at UBC and transplant hepatologist at Vancouver General Hospital, spoke to the disproportionate health issues in coastal First Nations, likely connected to lack of traditional seafood diet. International fisheries scientist, Dr. Daniel Pauly, presented, as did three other leading fisheries scientists. David Suzuki spoke of First Nations territories where community management was already being implemented into herring fisheries. 

Top Concerns Identified at the Forum

• DFO’s outdated modelling and science; failure to engage with anyone outside of the industry (characterized as divide and conquer practices)
• Need for education 
• Lack of First Nations/community control/involvement

Action Items

• Explore legal challenge under Douglas Treaties        
• Continue to build alliances broadly across the SOG, including US 
• Lobby DFO to update management/science and engagement
• Explore provincial health angle, costs to the health system of liver disease and provincial/federal leverage

Top Priorities and Central Concepts (as identified by UVIC’s Sustainable Fisheries students)

• Education, Indigenous Access, and Community Health

• Biodiversity Health and Shared Governance

• Public education, local community engagement, and Indigenous management practices, with roe harvesting and commercial fisheries as significant areas of concern.

• Connections between policy decisions, environmental change, and cultural resurgence illustrate how herring management is not just a biological issue but a deeply relational one. There is potential for policy shifts from global extractive knowledge (GEK) systems toward Indigenous-led, place-based stewardship rooted in Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), thereby supporting ecological, social, and economic sustainability.

• Community awareness, relationship building, Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) and Indigenous access contributed the most positively towards healthy herring, whereas capitalism and Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) management of herring are most detrimental.

Overall Consensus

There is a problem with declining stocks, lack of accountability by DFO for inaccurate projections, and failure to incorporate up to date science and traditional knowledge systems. There is a mutual desire for a sustainable fishery.

Additional Perspectives Gathered

The We Wai Kai, Wei Wai Kum, K’omoks, Tlowitsis and Kiakah Nations, who fall into the SOG management area, are bound under a Reconciliation Framework Agreement for Fisheries Resources (2021) (A-Tlegay Fisheries Society) could not attend, but informal conversations held with fishers/leaders in these communities, and outside of the SOG (e.g., Kitasoo/Xai’xai, Haida Gwaii, Heiltsuk) indicate there is broad consensus that the current model does not work for anyone. 

Key Words (and number of mentions recorded in discussion notes)

• Community (23)
• DFO (68)
• Douglas Treaties (8)
• Ecosystem (16)
• Education (27)
• First Nations (21)
• Health (34)
• Indigenous, incl. “Indigenous led,” (42)
• Jim Pattison (17)
• Legal, Lawsuit, Law, Court (32)
• Moratorium (11)
• Quota (11)
• Restoration (13)
• Youth (11)

Groups Represented at the Forum

First Nations

• SȾÁUTW̱ (Tsawout)
• W̱SÍ,KEM (Tseycum)
• xʷsepsəm (Esquimalt)
• Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish)
• Spune’luxutth (Penelakut)
• səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh)
• W̱JOȽEȽP’ (Tsartlip)
• Wuikinuxv (Oweekeno)
• Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw
• Stz’uminus (Chemanius)
• Leey’qsun (Lyackson)
• Songhees
• BOḰEĆEN (Pauquachin)

ENGOs

• Nature Salt Spring
• Salt Spring Conservancy
• Pacific Salmon Foundation
• Átl’ḵa7tsem/Howe Sound Marine Stewardship Initiative
• Herring Conservation and Restoration Society
• SSI Farmland Trust
• Hummingbird Collective
• Sea Change
• Galiano Conservancy Association
• Project Watershed
• Rocky Point Bird Observatory
• BC Nature
• Peninsula Streams Society
• Conservancy Hornby Island
• Powell River local groups
• David Suzuki Foundation
• Victoria Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary
• Herring Conservation and Restoration Society
• Saanich Inlet Protection Society
• Gorge Waterway Action Society
• Cowichan Valley Naturalists
• World Fisheries
• Habitat Acquisition Trust
• Watershed Watch Salmon Society
• Georgia Strait Alliance
• Saanich Inlet Protection Society
• Fish-Kissing Weasels Environmental

Governmental and Political Affiliations

• Deputy Provincial Health Officer (Dr. Shannon Waters)
• BC Ministry of Water, Land, and Resource Stewardship
• Green Party of Canada (incl. a policy research specialist)
• Green Party MP (Elizabeth May)
• Provincial Health Services Authority’s Planetary Health team

Post-Secondary Institutions

• University of Victoria
• Simon Fraser University
• University of the Fraser Valley
• Camosun College
• University of British Columbia
• Western Washington University

Ecotourism Businesses

• Eagle Wing Tours
• Prince of Whales
• Outershores Expedition