WHAT WE DO
Revitalizing Coastal Fisheries
A 100% Indigenous-owned commercial fishing business, Coastal Nations Fisheries (CNF) is working to revive community-based fishing fleets and the livelihoods they provide for families.
Through reinvestment of commercial fishery profits and ongoing financial support to shareholder Nations and their fishers, CNF helps to sustain healthy, thriving economies for all shareholder First Nations. Each community member from these Nations is both a shareholder and participant in this ground-breaking project that aims to become one of the largest fishing companies in BC.
OUR APPROACH
How CNF Supports Coastal Communities
After decades of being left out of fisheries management in their territories, coastal Nations are now lead partners in rebuilding fisheries that sustainably support coastal communities.
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Provides funding support to help community members purchase, build or refit fishing vessels and gear and acquire new licences and quotas.
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Creates new jobs and income opportunities through revitalized community-based fisheries and the Coastal Nations Commercial Fisheries company.
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Builds capacity through training, certification, and business planning for existing and new fishers to work in the coast-wide commercial fishery.
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Supports collaborative efforts to improve fisheries management, science, monitoring, and enforcement across the North and Central Coasts and Haida Gwaii.
"THE FRRA REPRESENTS A SINGULAR OPPORTUNITY FOR THE SHAREHOLDER NATIONS TO TAKE A CENTRAL PARTICIPATORY ROLE IN THE ECONOMICS OF COMMERCIAL FISHING, COMMUNITY-BASED FISHERIES ACCESS AND OPPORTUNITY IN THEIR TERRITORIES, AND A REAL SEAT AT THE COASTAL FISHERIES MANAGEMENT TABLE.”
– PAUL PATERSON, CEO OF COASTAL NATIONS FISHERIES
FISHERIES RECONCILIATION
A Blueprint for
Collaborative Management
CNF plays a role in a much broader goal to rebuild fisheries on the North Pacific Coast, where salmon, herring, Dungeness crab, and other marine species have supported local First Nations for millennia—sustaining local cultures, long-term food security and economic well-being.
Decades of mismanagement and overfishing, plus impacts from climate change and development pressures, have led to drastic reductions in populations of salmon and other culturally and ecologically important species.
In 2019, leaders from the eight participating First Nations and Canada’s Federal Government signed the landmark Fisheries Resources Reconciliation Agreement (FRRA)—a comprehensive and unprecedented framework for sustainably managing fisheries into the future.
Beyond providing a blueprint for collaborative management between First Nations and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO)—including monitoring and enforcement, and engagement with the commercial and recreational fishing sector—the FRRA set the stage for participating First Nations to create and manage their own fishing corporation: Coastal Nations Fisheries.
“RECONCILIATION IN ACTION, IN THIS CONTEXT, MEANS RESTORING THE RIGHTS OF OUR COMMUNITY MEMBERS TO FISH FOR A LIVING.”
CHIEF K̓ÁWÁZIⱢ MARILYN SLETT, HEILTSUK FIRST NATION
PRESIDENT OF COASTAL FIRST NATIONS