Sea of Possibility

The following is an excerpt from "Sea of Possibility", a feature that explores how First Nations in British Columbia have secured new marine protections to create lasting abundance, published in the Spring 2026 issue of Nature Conservancy magazine, with text by Matt Miller and photographs by Kiliii Yüyan  

ANTHONY ROBERTS LEADS ME DOWN A NARROW PATH through the coastal rainforest of British Columbia, Canada. Roots twist underfoot and the sound of rushing water grows louder with every step as we approach a river that should be alive with salmon. 

As we break from the cover of the trees, a metal fence spans the current like a dam. We walk along its edge and peer into the water. Nothing.

For Roberts, the absence is a warning. Salmon are the lifeblood of this coast, feeding forests, wildlife and communities. Their return signals balance; their decline affects everything.

Roberts is a Guardian Watchman for the Wei Wai Kum First Nation, part of a growing network of Indigenous-led stewardship initiatives across the region. His job: monitoring salmon runs, collecting data and protecting part of their ancestral territory now known as Heydon Bay. The camp here, tucked in a remote cove a couple hours north of Campbell River by boat, hosts Guardians for weeklong shifts. 

The fence temporarily halts the salmon’s migration. When fish congregate, Roberts and other Guardians open a small gate, channeling the fish into a pen on the other side. There, the Guardians take scale samples and record overall condition of the fish, before releasing them upstream.

“They should be here any day now,” he says. He should know—by his estimate he’s spent four full years of his life at this camp.

Roberts is a fifth-generation commercial fisher. He grew up eating salmon four meals a week. “All anyone talks about is how it used to be,” he says. “The abundance was crazy compared to what it is now.” 

Along the Great Bear Sea — a vast marine corridor from northern Vancouver Island to the Alaska border — and through the coastal rainforest, salmon populations have struggled for decades. This crisis threatens not just ecosystems but also food security, livelihoods and the cultural traditions of Indigenous communities who have stewarded these waters for millennia. More than 70% of salmon populations in British Columbia are below their long-term average abundance. The richness that once defined this coast is now a memory.

“All I’ve ever known is a salmon crisis,” says Trinity Mack, a 22-year-old marine stewardship officer for the Nuxalk Nation based in the Bella Coola Valley of British Columbia’s Central Coast. She’s heard stories about the old days. She knows at one point salmon sustained the Nation. Today, salmon restoration takes precedence, which means fewer fish for local families.

For Snxakila Clyde Tallio, director of culture and language for the Nuxalk Nation, these declines stem from a long history of colonial extraction — despite more than 14,000 years of First Nations stewardship. “We had our own system of managing the river and it worked,” he says. “We supported thousands of people through this local abundance.” 

Colonialism brought not only resource extraction but also disease and forced cultural assimilation. Across Canada, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly sent to Indian Residential Schools where they were stripped of their language and traditions, a brutal practice that continued until 1996 and claimed thousands of lives. In addition, policies like the Fisheries Act and Indian Act restricted First Nations fishing and land rights, criminalized cultural practices, and severed communities from places central to their identities. 

“Our elders have suffered greatly from colonialism, including the loss of culture and language, and the mental torture of that,” says Tallio. 

For many coastal First Nations, the loss of fisheries meant not only diminished food security but also economic hardship — by 2021, median income for First Nations living on reserve in British Columbia was 34% lower than that of non-Indigenous residents in the province. And First Nations are still fighting for recognition of their governance authority and cultural ties to land and water. 

Meanwhile, industrial logging carved into the Great Bear Rainforest, one of the most intact temperate rainforests on Earth. Clear-cutting fragmented habitats for grizzlies and spirit bears, destabilizing watersheds and threatening rivers that sustain salmon runs — lifelines for wildlife and people. 

The collision of these three crises — vanishing salmon, falling forests and the systematic erasure of Indigenous rights and access — forced a reckoning. It began on land. Between 2006 and 2016, the Great Bear Rainforest agreements established collaborative management across 15 million acres, including nearly 3 million acres on Haida Gwaii, an archipelago off British Columbia’s north coast. The agreement became a global model for conservation rooted in Indigenous leadership — and it set the stage for what would come next.

Explore the full story to learn how 17 First Nations, in collaboration with British Columbia and Canada, are changing the way the ocean is managed to safeguard critical biodiversity, create jobs and sustain coastal communities for generations to come.