Short Summary

There are 20 polluting salmon farms in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Region. Meanwhile, wild salmon in Clayoquot Sound are on the brink of extinction—with returning spawner counts in single digits at many rivers near Tofino. It’s not too late to stop this—but we need your help!

Clayoquot Salmon Investigation (CSI) is our salmon farm watchdog program. Staff and volunteers monitor fish farms in order to expose this polluting industry’s dirty secrets. We’ve been able to make international headlines about sea lion entrapments, bloodwater discharge, pesticide dumping, mass die-offs, sea lice epidemics, and deadly Norwegian viruses at fish farms near Tofino.

Momentum is building to get salmon farms out of Clayoquot Sound. The federal government has committed to getting the farms out of BC waters by 2025, however DFO has just approved expansions on 3 farms near Tofino. Now more than ever is the time to keep an eye on this harmful industry, and keep the story in the news. No one else is doing this!

Clayoquot Sound is the largest ancient rainforest left on Vancouver Island. Nearly a thousand people were arrested here at the peaceful logging blockades of the 1990s. Now it’s time to step up to protect the wild salmon that fertilize the trees and feed bears, wolves, and people. Support this campaign to help keep Clayoquot Sound wild and majestic. These are salmon forests. We are salmon people.

What We Need & What You Get

Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans tries to hide the harmful impacts of salmon farming, making this grassroots program extremely important. And now, Cermaq (a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corp.) has been approved to expand 3 'mega-farms', while also running a 'Semi-Closed Containment’ experimental fish farm near Tofino.

We travel deep into the inlets, year-round in all weather, to collect samples and monitor what's happening on the ground. This year, we'll be paying special attention to Cermaq’s new experimental farm. We’ve been able to break national news stories many times, exposing these companies’ awful environmental practices.

Your donation will power up CSI by putting gas in volunteers' boats, chartering boats when necessary, sending samples to the lab for testing, and helping with the costs of equipment and video documentation to help spread the word.

Donate generously to help save wild salmon—and get great perks in return! Thanks to all the Tofino businesses who donated such amazing items.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to our 2022 Indiegogo! We were able to land hundreds of news stories around the world about Tofino's polluting fish farms. 

 

Check out the perks below!

Choose from one of these great Storm Surf Shop Hats!

Select one of Circa 1983's art prints.

Once in a Decade Storm (Circa 1983)

Bear with Salmon (Circa 1983)

Forest and Waves (Circa 1983)

Frank Island (Circa 1983)
 

Clayoquot Wolf Hoodie—available in black or red.

The Impact

Clayoquot Sound is the largest and most famous ancient rainforest left on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. The Clayoquot Summer blockades of 1993 which stopped the chainsaws were then the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history (a record held until last summer—way to go Fairy Creek protectors!).

'The War of the Woods' in Clayoquot Sound—1993

Yet entire ecosystems are being put at risk by open-net pen salmon farms. If wild salmon go the way of the dodo, wildlife will starve and so will the forests. Local Indigenous cultures will be impoverished.

Clayoquot Salmon Investigation shines a spotlight on the local face of the global salmon farming industry. In past we have been successful in pressuring the BC government to investigate all pesticide use on fish farms in BC, as well as all blood water discharge from fish processing plants.

All of the news stories we break are showing people that salmon farming is clearly not sustainable. A 2021 poll showed that 75% of British Columbians want salmon farms removed from the ocean.

Now there is serious momentum to get the farms out! In 2018 Washington state banned salmon farms from their waters by 2025. The same year, British Columbia announced that salmon farms will be removed from the Broughton Archipelago by 2023. Canada's government pledged in 2019 to transition open-net pen salmon farms out of the ocean by 2025—and the transition has already begun in the Discovery Islands. This leaves all eyes on Clayoquot as the largest remaining concentration of fish farms in BC.

Clayoquot Action is calling for salmon farms to be removed from Clayoquot Sound immediately. Please join the movement to help make this happen! You can help protect wild salmon—the backbone of the coast.

What if we exceed our goal?

By joining Clayoquot Action’s Indiegogo community you will be helping to get salmon farms out of the ocean in British Columbia.

 If the goal of raising $10,000 is exceeded, here are a few items from the top of our to-do list: 

$5,000 will power up our campaign to stop the expansion of salmon farms in Clayoquot Sound.

$15,000 will help create hard-hitting short documentaries to expose this polluting industry’s dirty secrets.

$45,000 will hire a full-time CSI field and research coordinator for a year to seriously ramp up our work.

Who is Clayoquot Action?

Clayoquot Action is a Tofino-based conservation society. We stand up for democratic rights, Indigenous rights, and the rights of Mother Earth. Together with local volunteers and a small staff—backed online by people around the world—we run strategic, people-powered campaigns to help Clayoquot Sound remain one of the most beautiful places left on earth.

Clayoquot Action founders Bonny Glambeck and Dan Lewis were key organizers of the 1993 Clayoquot Summer protests. For over thirty years, they have been working to protect this awe-inspiring place from threats due to clearcut logging, industrial-scale mining, oil tankers, and salmon farming.

What is Clayoquot Sound?

Clayoquot Sound is located in the unceded territories of the Hesquiaht, Ahousaht, and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations—stewards since time immemorial of the lands and waters now called Clayoquot Sound.

The Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Region, near Tofino BC, is the Last Great Rainforest on Vancouver Island—world famous for monumental cedars, bears, wolves and whales.

The nitrogen which fertilizes these magnificent rainforests comes from a marine source—in the bodies of wild salmon, when they return to their natal stream to spawn and die. Black bears, timber wolves, bald eagles and many other wildlife species feast on the salmon, spreading the nutrients far and wide.

Wild salmon are the lifeblood of these ancient forests and cultures, providing food, livelihoods and fertilizing the ecosystem which sustains life.

Want to learn more?

Check out our website and take the Wild Salmon Pledge. You'll be kept up to date on the latest developments, and will be the first to know when you can take specific actions to help protect wild salmon.

Other Ways You Can Help

Follow Clayoquot Action on social media. Please help spread the word—share this page with your family and friends!

- Clayoquot Action on Instagram

- Clayoquot Action on Facebook

- Clayoquot Action on Twitter