About Us
The SOS Marine Conservation Foundation is a group of Western Canadians dedicated to resolving marine conservation challenges and creating new opportunities through technological innovation.
We are a broad coalition of business leaders, entrepreneurs, engineers, financial and legal professionals, philanthropists and recreational fishers. Meet the SOS Solutions Advisory Committee.
We are pro-business and pro-smart aquaculture.
The Save Our Salmon Initiative (SOS) was launched by the SOS Marine Conservation Foundation to protect B.C.’s important stocks of wild Pacific salmon which are essential to the ecological, cultural and economic well-being of British Columbia.
Populations of British Columbia’s wild Pacific salmon are plummeting rapidly, putting the continued existence of the wild salmon in doubt. The causes of this decline range from loss of habitat to overfishing and climate change. However, of all the threats to wild salmon, ending the impacts of open net-cage salmon farming offers the greatest, immediate opportunity to restore wild salmon stocks.
We have been brought together by the common concern that these open net-cage salmon farms are having a significant, negative impact on B.C.'s wild salmon.
- There is strong, peer reviewed and published evidence that open net-cage salmon farms are killing millions of juvenile wild salmon in B.C.;
- The economic costs of the environmental impact of these farms are affecting First Nations, wilderness tourism operators, commercial fishers and recreational anglers;
- Billions of dollars of revenue to B.C. and the related jobs are at risk; and
- Entire ecosystems are at risk.
The Initiative wants the deleterious effects of commercial salmon farms on wild salmon addressed before it is too late and the wild salmon, are gone forever. Migrating juvenile salmon need unobstructed safe passage to the open ocean.
In pursuit of this goal, SOS funds research into the economic costs and benefits of salmon farming as well as scientific research into the effects of salmon farms on the marine environment and technical research into improving salmon farming management. We also aim to provide public education to increase understanding of the marine ecosystem to build people’s capacity to protect and conserve it.
We are a registered charity.
Please see our goals, solutions and find out where SOS resources are invested.
