In late January 2025, Wild Salmon Center announced the hire of Greg Knox as our British Columbia Director: a new position within our international team of Pacific salmon policy and restoration experts. 

In the months since, Knox—the long-serving Executive Director of SkeenaWild Conservation Trust—has begun traveling the province, meeting with partners to hone his vision.  (He’s also been working with incoming SkeenaWild Executive Director Julia Hill Sorochan to ensure a smooth transition.)

Knox officially joined Wild Salmon Center in March. The timing for this new, province-wide role is fortuitous, he says. The coming months and years will bring big, possibly unprecedented challenges to salmon and steelhead conservation in B.C.—but also powerful opportunities. Key among the latter is the opportunity to build a shared base of power among conservation leaders across the province.

“There are important collaborations happening across the province to protect salmon and steelhead,” Knox says. “What there hasn’t been, so far, is one organization that’s truly dedicated to understanding the needs of conservation groups across British Columbia. Wild Salmon Center can play that support role.” 

“There hasn’t been one organization dedicated to understanding the needs of conservation groups across British Columbia. Wild Salmon Center can play that support role.”

Wild Salmon Center British Columbia Director Greg Knox

Knox says he’s ready to make this lift—and that it’s needed now, more than ever. He sees a united front as key to making conservation gains in the near future, given rapidly shifting politics and policies both in Canada and elsewhere in North America.

“At the federal level and beyond, we’re seeing new austerity, and a lot of uncertainty,” Knox says. “We’re really going to need to focus our collective attention and resources to make sure that B.C.’s wild salmon and steelhead are safe.”

Below, Knox shares how he’ll work to “raise all boats” across the province.

Wild Salmon Center: You led SkeenaWild for the past 18 years. What’s been the response from folks to your new role—and its focus not on one watershed, but an entire province?

Greg Knox: I feel pretty lucky in that everyone has been very supportive. They see the value in this move. Folks seem to feel that I can really help in this role. This position, and what it says about Wild Salmon Center’s commitment to British Columbia and its partners here—it’s just really timely. We’re entering volatile times. Wild Salmon Center can help ensure that critical work being done in the province can continue. Our goal is to raise all boats—to bring more resources to the work in BC. at a time when it’s more needed than ever. 

That’s what’s fueling my drive, is this incredible response I’ve gotten so far. I’m humbled, and also taking it really seriously. I understand that people are putting a lot of faith in me and I want to show that I’m up to the challenge. But it’s not going to be easy.

“We’re entering volatile times. Wild Salmon Center can help ensure that critical work being done in the province can continue.”

Wild Salmon Center British Columbia Director Greg Knox

What challenges are you anticipating?

We have some serious challenges right now with politics both at the federal level in Canada, and south of the border. It’s bringing a lot of uncertainty to our work. We’re likely facing reductions in spending from our federal government. So there’s austerity already starting to hit us. And there are more challenges on the horizon. In British Columbia, our recently reelected provincial government has committed to protecting salmon and protected areas. And yet, it also seems to be refocusing efforts more on the economy—and less on salmon and their habitat.

Do you see opportunities to make headway in salmon conservation, given these emerging challenges?

Absolutely.  One key opportunity lies in holding the provincial government to its 30 by 30 commitment by creating new protected areas in places like the Skeena, Nass, and Central Coast. We can work on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border to strengthen the Pacific Salmon Treaty in light of our climate challenges and the unpredictability of our salmon and steelhead returns. And we can continue to support Indigenous-led land use planning, like in the Skeena and Nass, as well as the work of First Nations to protect key salmon ecosystems like the Chilcotin River and Central Coast.

“One key opportunity lies in holding the provincial government to its 30 by 30 commitment by creating new protected areas in places like the Skeena, Nass, and Central Coast.”

Wild Salmon Center British Columbia Director Greg Knox

How do you think Wild Salmon Center—and you, personally—can help advance this work?

A good place to start is with the Indigenous communities who are leading the way in protecting salmon and steelhead habitat. This leadership isn’t just in how they’re reforming land use planning. First Nations are also doing really innovative work in selective fisheries, rebuilding plans, artificial intelligence, genetics, and other research. 

But there’s not a lot of opportunity for these communities to talk to each other, regionally or internationally. That’s where having an organization that can play a convenor role, like Wild Salmon Center, can be really helpful. We have the opportunity to help spotlight and scale this work.

“First Nations are doing innovative work in selective fisheries, rebuilding plans, artificial intelligence, genetics, and other research. We have the opportunity to help spotlight and scale this work.”

Wild Salmon Center British Columbia Director Greg Knox

Wild Salmon Center is really well positioned to help with that knowledge exchange, help showcase local heroes who are already implementing new fisheries management and habitat protection tools. Because these aren’t just ideas. These are real solutions that are already happening in rivers. And happening in a significant way here in B.C. 

You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you, it sounds like. How are you preparing?

I’ve spent most of my life exploring the Skeena and Nass with friends, family, and colleagues. I’m really excited to now deepen my understanding in other salmon strongholds, and really understand them in a hands-on way. This spring and summer I’ll be getting out to the Chilcotin, Taku, Kimsquit, and maybe out to the Central Coast. I have a lot of relationship-building ahead of me with First Nations and other local partners. And, hopefully, the opportunity to learn firsthand from other communities in strongholds beyond B.C.

This incredible network of relationships is, I think, Wild Salmon Center’s true strength. We support local communities—the people on the ground who can protect their rivers over the long term. But this local support is part of a larger, global story of salmon. 

I feel really privileged to be taking on this challenge, and lucky to have so many colleagues and friends who want to work with me. I’m ready for this new adventure.

“This incredible network of relationships is Wild Salmon Center’s true strength. We support the people on the ground who can protect their rivers over the long term. But it’s part of a larger, global story of salmon.” 

Wild Salmon Center British Columbia Director Greg Knox

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Salmon know no borders. But humans do—and our border politics can have consequences for vulnerable wild fish. Case in point are transboundary salmon rivers like the Taku. Originating in the territorial homelands of the Taku River Tlingit (pronounced KLING-kit) First Nation, high in the boreal forests of British Columbia’s Stikine Plateau, the Taku crosses the Canadian border into Alaska near Juneau before entering Taku Inlet and the Pacific Ocean. 

For salmon traveling from freshwater to ocean and back, the invisible lines between jurisdictions bring complex human interventions. For Indigenous salmon communities like the Taku River Tlingit (TRT)—a key Wild Salmon Center partner—transboundary issues are also complex, spanning politics, culture, and climate change.

“Fisheries management on transboundary rivers like the Taku require a great deal of intergovernmental cooperation,” says WSC Senior Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas, who helped to advance our recent partnership agreement with the TRT First Nation. “The experiences and insights of the Taku River Tlingit can help inform how salmon management policies could and should evolve elsewhere in the Pacific.”

One challenge is the current harvest regime for the Taku’s wild fish runs. Alaska’s marine fishing fleets are the first to encounter Taku salmon as they return home to spawn. Currently, the Pacific Salmon Treaty allows for 82 percent of Taku salmon to be harvested in these mixed-stock U.S. fisheries. Yet more than 90 percent of Taku salmon spawning and rearing habitat is upriver in TRT Nation homelands—not Alaska. 

“The experiences and insights of the Taku River Tlingit can help inform how salmon management policies could and should evolve elsewhere in the Pacific.”

Wild Salmon Center Senior Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas

But transboundary issues cut both ways. Alaskan salmon advocates point to the legacy of the Tulsequah Chief Mine, located upstream in B.C. For more than 60 years, the former copper, lead, zinc and gold mine has leached acid rock drainage into the Taku watershed just northeast of the river’s border crossing into Alaska—with no proposed plan of action, yet, that satisfies the Alaskan advocates.  

Then there are the more universal challenges of a warming planet. The Taku is one of vanishingly few salmon watersheds left on Earth with glacier cover that still surpasses 20 percent. Glacial influence profoundly shapes the Taku’s topography, stream flows, and temperatures, along with where salmon can currently access habitat. But as with glaciers across the North Pacific, the Taku’s ancient ice sheets are melting fast. 

The fact that the Taku is changing isn’t lost on the Taku River Tlingit. In response, the community is taking bold new steps to protect Taku salmon from the river’s headwaters to the U.S./Canada border. In 2023, the TRT Nation named 60 percent of the 1.8-million-hectare Taku watershed an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area, declaring this area now off-limits to extractive industries like mining, and asserting the Nation’s primary stewardship role over the watershed.

For Mark Connor, the Nation’s Fisheries Coordinator, this land declaration introduces a new and hopeful chapter in regional governance issues. The B.C. provincial government has yet to formally acknowledge this new protected area, Connor notes—but the Taku River Tlingit aren’t waiting to advance their conservation vision for the region’s wild fish runs.

“TRT is working on resiliency on a couple levels,” Connor says. “When we talk about salmon resilience, part of it is science, but there’s also cultural and organizational resilience: reconnecting the Tlingit people with the land.” 

“When we talk about salmon resilience, part of it is science, but there’s also cultural and organizational resilience: reconnecting the Tlingit people with the land.” 

Taku River Tlingit First Nation Fisheries Coordinator Mark Connor

Supported in part by The Stronghold Fund, WSC’s impact fund for salmon, the TRT Nation is now working on a basin-wide vulnerability assessment to identify where climate shifts—from glacier retreat to warmer water—are impacting the Taku’s culturally and commercially important populations of sockeye, coho, and Chinook salmon, along with runs of pink and chum salmon. Factoring climate change into fisheries policies is another area in which the Nation’s approach to stewardship holds lessons for the broader salmon community.

“It’s crazy how fast things are happening in the Taku,” says Dr. Jonathan Moore, Director of Simon Fraser University’s Salmon Watersheds Lab and a member of Wild Salmon Center’s Science Advisory Board. Dr. Moore’s work often focuses on how climate change and human land uses impact salmon. He’s one of several scholars now working with the TRT Nation to advance its work on salmon resilience and climate change.

“It’s crazy how fast things are happening in the Taku.”

Simon Fraser University Salmon Watershed Labs Director Dr. Jonathan Moore

“The Taku has no roads, no dams, and very few direct impacts of human development,” Dr. Moore adds. “So as we watch this watershed transform, with new lakes and new floodplain forests, we know that climate change is the driver.”

Climate impacts are already complicating the Nation’s wild fish stewardship, Connor says. In 2018, wildfires merged into a megablaze one watershed south of the Taku in the Stikine watershed: a sobering reminder of the Taku’s own drought-enhanced vulnerability. In 2020, a massive landslide temporarily impeded sections of the Taku mainstem, smothering and scouring salmon habitat. In 2021, record low water flows blocked passage for nearly the entirety of one key returning sockeye population. 

“As we watch this watershed transform, with new lakes and new floodplain forests, we know that climate change is the driver.”

Simon Fraser University Salmon Watershed Labs Director Dr. Jonathan Moore

“We’re told that with climate change, we can expect more landslides and these kinds of extreme weather events,” Connor says. “And yet, the Taku remains about as pristine as you’ll find anywhere in this part of Canada. We’re a stronghold, the best of what’s left.” 

That assertion aligns with WSC’s stronghold approach, which aims to focus conservation resources on maintaining largely intact rivers systems like the Taku, as our best long-term strategy for protecting wild salmon and steelhead resilience across their range.

“We’re told that we can expect more landslides and these kinds of extreme weather events. And yet, the Taku remains a stronghold, the best of what’s left.” 

Taku River Tlingit First Nation Fisheries Coordinator Mark Connor

In the still largely-protected Taku, accelerating glacier retreat is another area that represents new challenges—along with a potential silver lining. According to research from a team of scientists including Dr. Moore and WSC Science Director Dr. Matt Sloat, glacier retreat could open up new spawning and rearing areas for salmon, as long as these lands remain safe from the impacts of future human development. 

Connor says that TRT is taking emerging science on glacier retreat seriously, and building the prospect of future salmon habitat into its conservation plans.  

“Glacier retreat does have the potential to create new habitat for salmon,” Connor says. “But these are also areas where the mining sector has a lot of interest. These are conversations we should have now. And the more we know about our fish, the better.” 

Gathering that knowledge is an ambitious task. The Taku drainage covers roughly 40,000 square kilometers, and its steep, alpine subwatersheds are primarily accessed by helicopter. Tlingit Land Guardians and technicians are now regularly monitoring returning sockeye and Chinook at three weir sites at King Salmon Lake, Kuthai Lake, and the Nakina River. They’re also sampling spawned-out carcasses at a third weir site for genetic sampling, and preparing to capture data on outmigrating smolts at a fourth site on King Salmon Lake.

“Glacier retreat does have the potential to create new habitat for salmon. These are conversations we should have now.” 

Taku River Tlingit First Nation Fisheries Coordinator Mark Connor

This information—along with river temperature data from 48 new loggers installed across the watershed—can help TRT better understand where and how wild fish thrive, today and into the future. 

From mixed-stock fishing and border politics to mining and climate change, the challenges for Taku salmon are complex—and growing. But fortunately for these cherished wild runs, the TRT First Nation’s proactive and evolving salmon strategy aims to meet this moment.

“Salmon habitat is changing across the Pacific Rim,” Dr. Atlas says. “The Taku River Tlingit and their science partners are helping the world learn how salmon—and humans—can adapt. What we learn in the Taku could help protect wild fish resiliency for decades to come.”

“What we learn in the Taku could help protect wild fish resiliency for decades to come.”

Wild Salmon Center Senior Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas

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Right now, in rivers across British Columbia’s Central Coast, we don’t know how many salmon are actually returning. At least, not until fishing seasons are over.

And yet, fisheries managers still have to make decisions. They have to make forecasts, modeled on data from the past. They have to set harvest targets for commercial and recreational fisheries. And increasingly, they have to make the call on emergency closures, when things start looking grim.

“On the north and central coast of BC, we’ve seen really wildly variable returns of salmon over the last decade,” says Dr. Will Atlas, Wild Salmon Center Senior Watershed Scientist. “With accelerating climate change, every year is unprecedented now. Yet from a fisheries management perspective, we’re still going into most seasons assuming that this year will look like the past.”

One answer, Dr. Atlas says, is “Salmon Vision.” Results from this first-of-its-kind technology—developed by WSC in partnership with the Pacific Salmon Foundation, Gitanyow Fisheries Authority, and Skeena Fisheries Commission—were recently published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

“With accelerating climate change, every year is unprecedented now. Yet from a fisheries management perspective, we’re still going into most seasons assuming that this year will look like the past.”

WSC Senior Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas

Combining artificial intelligence with ancient fishing weir technology, the Salmon Vision computer deep learning model leverages rapidly emerging artificial intelligence tools to identify and count fish species.

The goal is to enable real-time salmon population monitoring for First Nations fisheries managers and beyond. 

“Many of our First Nations partners are telling us that we need to automate fish counting to make informed decisions while salmon are still running,” Dr. Atlas says. “And underwater video technology can now help us literally see those salmon return to rivers.”

“We need to automate fish counting to make informed decisions while salmon are still running. And underwater video technology can now help us literally see those salmon return to rivers. ”

WSC Senior Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas

The Salmon Vision pilot study annotates more than 500,000 video frames captured at Indigenous-run fish counting weirs on the Kitwanga and Bear Rivers of B.C.’s Central Coast. Early assessments show promising adeptness in tracking 12 different fish species passing through custom fish-counting boxes at the two weirs, with scores surpassing 90 and 80 percent accuracy for coho and sockeye salmon: two of the principal fish species targeted by First Nations, commercial, and recreational fishers. 

Salmon Vision is also running on a weir operated by the Heiltsuk Nation on the Koeye River.

For First Nations like the Heiltsuk, weirs represent more than a revitalization of an age-old fishing technology. Banned in the late 1800s by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans as a way to consolidate control of fishery resources, the rebuilding of weirs on rivers like the Koeye is a statement both of First Nations sovereignty and their seat at the table in fisheries management decisions. 

“The Koeye weir is a modern-day expression of not only Heiltsuk title and rights, but also an avenue for us to be a part of the latest science,” says William Housty, Associate Director of the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department. “And to make decisions not just for the betterment of this creek, but for the whole ecosystem.” 

Now, the Salmon Vision team is implementing automated counting on a trial basis in several rivers around the B.C. North and Central Coasts with partner First Nations, with a goal of providing reliable real-time fish count data to these partners by 2024. Ultimately, Dr. Atlas says, this groundbreaking A.I. technology could be in place in rivers across the North Pacific.

“We need information on how many salmon are returning everywhere that we’re fishing for salmon,” Dr. Atlas says. “You can’t tell me with a straight face that you’re having a sustainable fishery if you don’t know how many fish you have coming back. And that’s a problem right around the Pacific Rim.”

It’s a problem with a promising solution—one that’s just now coming into focus.

“You can’t tell me with a straight face that you’re having a sustainable fishery if you don’t know how many fish you have coming back. And that’s a problem right around the Pacific Rim.”

WSC Senior Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas

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Canadian Courts Asked to Block Approval of Massive Petronas LNG project

First Nations and conservationists rally against “wrong project in the wrong place”

First Nations and environmentalists from northwest B.C. launched multiple federal court actions today aimed at stopping construction of a “dangerous and ill-conceived” $11.4-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) project at the mouth of the Skeena River.

“Once again, we are forced to ask courts to do what our politicians seem unable to do – to honor Canada’s obligations to its Indigenous communities, and to protect our environment from catastrophic harm,” said Chief Yahaan (Donnie Wesley), of the Gitwilgyoots Tribe.

“Despite repeated requests, the federal government has failed to properly consult with our people,” said Chief Malii (Glen Williams), Chief Negotiator for the Gitanyow. “Justin Trudeau promised a new relationship with Indigenous communities. Instead, he added insult to injury by ignoring us, and giving the green light to a project that will destroy our way of life.”

In downtown Vancouver today, Wesley and Williams filed separate writs with the Federal Court, seeking a judicial review of last month’s approval by the Canadian government of the proposed Pacific Northwest LNG project. The project is majority owned by Malaysia’s state oil company, Petronas.

At the same time, they sent a letter warning Petronas, its investment partners, and the Malaysian public that the LNG project faces implacable opposition in Canada. “It doesn’t matter how much money you promise to spend in our territories – you cannot buy our assent to your project, and you will not achieve it”, the letter stated.

Petronas was alerted to today’s court actions, plans to rally international opposition, and ongoing civil disobedience to disrupt their plans to build a massive industrial facility overtop of Flora Bank, one of the most sensitive and productive salmon habitats in North America. The bank is used by hundreds of millions of juvenile salmon each spring and summer. Dating back four decades, federal fisheries scientists identified this area as a biological hotspot that should be protected.

SkeenaWild Conservation Trust filed its own judicial review of the project approval. It cites flaws in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s characterization of the project’s impacts.  “The Agency gave the Environment Minister flawed information and conclusions about the project’s impacts on fish and fish habitat,” said Greg Knox, Executive Director of SkeenaWild. “We challenge the Agency’s conclusion that the project will have no significant impact on fish even though construction of the project could permanently destroy 35,000 square meters of crucial salmon habitat.”

SkeenaWild is also challenging the Agency’s failure to do a cumulative effects assessment of climate pollution from the facility. By the company and the government’s own admission, the project will become one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

At a ceremony in Vancouver announcing the lawsuits, representatives of the Wet’suwet’en, Gitxsan, Lake Babine and Haida First Nations rallied in support of Gitwilgyoots, Gitanyow’s and SkeenaWild’s court actions.

As well, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, declared strong opposition to the project. “This is a dangerous and ill-conceived attack on our environment and our Indigenous rights,” Phillip said. “Our courts have ruled that Canadian energy companies cannot run roughshod over First Nations. Well, foreign companies can’t either.”

The lawsuits filed by First Nations on Thursday cite a recent Federal Court of Appeal decision, which overturned federal approval of a permit allowing Enbridge to build its Northern Gateway oil pipeline in the same region as the Petronas project. The court found that the company and the federal government failed to adequately consult with Indigenous communities along the pipeline route.

“As with Enbridge, and despite repeated requests that they consult with us, Petronas and the federal government failed in their duty to listen to the ancestral owners of Lelu Island,” Yahaan said. “We have never been opposed to development. But we have always opposed industrial development on top of the most important salmon habitat we have on our coast.”

Media Contact:
Oakley Brooks (503) 307-3927

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