Indigenous Knowledge and Salmon-Safe Certification at Vancouver International Airport

Located on more than 3,300 acres on Sea Island in BC, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people, and servicing more than 26.4 million passengers in 2019, YVR is one of Canada's largest and busiest airports. In 2016, YVR was certified for a 5-year period as Salmon-Safe, a designation that serves to weave together the environmental stewardship of Sea Island to ensure the protection of the Fraser River, one of the most important salmon-bearing rivers in the world. In 2017, YVR and the Musqueam Indian Band signed a Sustainability & Friendship Agreement a 30-year agreement based on friendship and respect to achieve a sustainable and mutually beneficial future. With the Salmon-Safe certification up for reassessment, YVR, the Fraser Basin Council and the Musqueam community sought to enhance the recertification process by including indigenous knowledge. In this session, learn more about how the three parties worked to bring together western science and indigenous knowledge to better understand the our relationships with the land and the water and explore what is possible in the next 5-year certification period.