Indigenous Systems of Management for Healthier Fisheries

Before European colonization, populations of Pacific salmon were successfully managed by the Indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest since time immemorial. Colonization and its associated fisheries management practices have depleted stocks and disrupted the complex social–ecological systems that underlie them.  In this episode, we're joined by Will Atlas, a salmon watershed scientist with the Wild Salmon Center; Andrea Reid, citizen and member of the Nisga’a Nation, in British Columbia, and an assistant professor with the University of British Columbia; and William G. Housty of the Heiltsuck First Nation and the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department. Our guests describe how a return to traditional management may revitalize these fisheries and bolster the fishing communities that depend on them. Read this article in BioScience. Subscribe on iTunes. Subscribe on Stitcher. Catch up with us on Twitter.