Coastal First Nations in BC say this year’s sockeye surge is cause for celebration but warn that activist claims tying it to salmon farm closures misrepresent science, undermines reconciliation and skews the real story of why this is happening
By Fabian Dawson
SeaWestNews
Coastal First Nations in BC are celebrating this year’s strong Fraser River sockeye runs while affirming that salmon farming in their traditional territories remains vital to their stewardship, economies, and food security.
The Coalition of First Nations for Finfish Stewardship (FNFFS) said the 2025 returns are welcome news but warned against misinformation linking the strong runs to recent salmon farm closures.
“First Nations know these runs rise and fall. The ocean changes from year to year, and when conditions line up, sockeye salmon do well, whether farms are operating or not,” the coalition said in a statement.
“While this is a time for celebration in our communities, we remain deeply disappointed to see that recent media coverage erroneously claims that this year’s strong Fraser sockeye returns are the result of salmon farm closures. They are not linked.”
Anti-fish farming activists have been using this year’s record returns to promote their calls for the removal of salmon farms, despite decades of peer-reviewed research showing that aquaculture poses no more than a minimal risk to migrating Fraser sockeye.
The FNFFS said such narratives ignore the findings of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ (DFO) risk assessments that salmon farms do not drive population declines.
The activists also routinely leave out key data and historical trends when shaping their media statements.
The largest Fraser River sockeye return in living memory occurred in 2010, when more than 28 million fish returned while salmon farms were fully operating. Long-run data from the Pacific Salmon Commission shows that since 1990, average sockeye returns have been higher than in the preceding four decades, underscoring that cyclical ocean conditions, climate change, overfishing, and habitat pressures are the real drivers of salmon abundance.
First Nations leaders say attributing this year’s abundance to farm closures misrepresents science and undermines Indigenous Rights and Title. They argue it also damages reconciliation opportunities by stigmatizing aquaculture partnerships that provide jobs, food security, and economic resilience in coastal territories.
Dallas Smith, spokesperson for the FNFFS and a member of the Tlowitsis First Nation, said the misinformation harms communities that have chosen salmon farming as part of their future.
“When such one-sided narratives go unchallenged, they threaten our Rights and Title, they weaken reconciliation, and they dismiss federal science,” said Smith. “We will continue to steward wild salmon recovery and responsible aquaculture together, because both are essential to the health of our waters, our communities, and Canada’s food system.”
The debate over salmon farming in British Columbia has often pitted Indigenous communities against each other. While groups such as the First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance (FNWSA) and the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) oppose ocean salmon aquaculture, the FNFFS has called such positions selective and contradictory, pointing to their silence on large-scale industrial projects that also affect salmon habitat.
Bob Chamberlin, chair of the First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance, has repeatedly claimed that more than 100 First Nations in BC oppose salmon farming. But roughly one third of the Nations he points to as allies are themselves directly involved in, or have signed agreements supporting, major industrial projects with documented impacts on wild salmon.
These include the Coastal GasLink Pipeline, the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) Pipeline, the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Project, LNG Canada and Ksi Lisims LNG terminals, the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 expansion, as well as regional logging and mining operations.
Federal reviews and conservation reports have flagged these developments as carrying risks to salmon habitat and wild stocks.
Yet many of the same Nations backing anti-salmon farming resolutions continue to support or benefit from these ventures. It is a contradiction that Chamberlin and other activists refuse to acknowledge, and one that remains largely unreported in media.
The coalition, Smith said, is not opposed to any of the mega-projects, as First Nations involved with them can be trusted to protect their traditional lands and waters on their journey toward economic reconciliation.
“We are asking for the same trust,” he has said.
“It becomes colonial all over again when one group of Nations tries to dictate what others can or cannot do on their traditional territories…Reconciliation means supporting each other’s choices, even if they’re different. That is what true recognition of Rights and Title looks like,” Smith has pointed out in his Rez Dog Walkers podcast.
The FNFFS has also warned that the federal government’s proposed plan to phase out open-net salmon farming in BC by 2029 will disproportionately harm First Nations who rely on the industry. This is a policy shaped by activist pressure and entrenched under the Trudeau-era Liberals.
If this ban goes ahead under the current Carney administration, BC faces the loss of 4,560 jobs, including over 1,000 held by Indigenous workers, while taxpayers could be on the hook for an estimated $9 billion in compensation to salmon farmers, suppliers, and First Nations.
Today, 100 percent of farmed salmon in British Columbia is produced in partnership with Rights Holder First Nations, making the proposed ban a direct challenge to Indigenous-led economic development and food security.
(Main File image shows Dallas Smith, the spokesman for the FNFFS, at a press conference. Photo: FNFFS)