Building a Shared Path for Coordinated Salmon Recovery on Vancouver Island
Across Vancouver Island, First Nations are leading efforts to rebuild salmon stocks in response to ongoing declines in Pacific salmon populations. However, these efforts are often spread across communities and lack coordination among partners.
To address this, the Island Marine Aquatic Working Group Society (IMAWG) established the Vancouver Island Salmon Committee (VISC), a collaboration table that brings together First Nations, First Nations organizations and government agencies to improve communication and align salmon recovery efforts.
With support from the Indigenous Stewardship Fund (ISF), VISC hosted five workshops (four virtual and one in person) over the past year to share ongoing work and identify regional priorities, focusing on South Island implementation. These sessions created space for knowledge sharing, discussion of challenges and collaborative planning. Summaries and visual meeting records from each session were shared with all attendees and participating Nations, helping extend the reach of the work.
In-person VISC workshop session. (Photo Credit: Island Marine Aquatic Working Group Society. (IMAWG))
Graphic recording from the November 2025 VISC workshop highlighting shared priorities for salmon recovery. (Photo Credit: Island Marine Aquatic Working Group Society (IMAWG))
Through this process, VISC is strengthening how information is shared across the region and ensuring that recovery efforts are informed by both Indigenous knowledge and on-the-ground experience. By connecting projects and perspectives, the committee helps identify common priorities, highlight practical approaches and support more consistent decision-making.
VISC plays a critical work in advancing on-the-ground restoration work, by strengthening the coordination, relationships and shared priorities needed to support effective salmon recovery efforts across the region. VISC helps convene Nations, knowledge holders, communities and government partners to create the relationships, trust and shared understanding needed for long-term stewardship and restoration efforts to move forward in a good way.
This work includes facilitating dialogue, supporting Nation-to-Nation collaboration, creating spaces for sharing Indigenous knowledge and priorities, and helping align collective action around the protection of lands, waters and species. These processes are deeply rooted in Indigenous values and ways of working, where relationship-building, consensus, respect for protocols and community engagement are essential to achieving lasting outcomes.
How ISF is bridging the funding gap of governance work
This type of convening and governance work often falls outside the priorities and funding criteria of governments and traditional funders, which tend to prioritize shovel-ready projects and short-term deliverables over the long-term relationship and capacity-building required to sustain stewardship efforts. This is why an Indigenous-led funder such as ISF is so critical. We understand that meaningful restoration begins long before restoration crews arrive on the ground. By supporting convening, governance and Indigenous-led planning processes, Indigenous funders help build the foundation necessary for successful, community-supported and culturally grounded restoration initiatives to exist and endure over time.
The Indigenous Stewardship Fund (ISF) works in close partnership with the First Nations Fisheries Council (FNFC), which serves as a frontline organization for collaboration with First Nations across British Columbia. FNFC leads relationship-building and engagement with more than 200 First Nations across the province, listening to and identifying Nations’ interests, priorities and perspectives. ISF complements this work by serving as the funding mechanism that helps turn those relationships and priorities into action. Together, FNFC and ISF ensure that the leadership, needs and priorities of BC First Nations are met with flexible and accessible resources that support Indigenous-led stewardship, habitat protection and long-term environmental resilience.
