If measured as a straight-line, Canada’s western coastline is some 600 miles long. But study a map, or, better yet, pour over a satellite image, and you’ll see there this is nothing linear about this beautiful and fractured land. The coast is so amazingly complicated that the real distance — perhaps, as the raven flies — measures approximately 15,000 miles of meandering inlets, deep fjords, and 40,000-plus islands of varying size. Mix this geographic complexity together with the Pacific Ranges towering just inland, abundant rain, and a relatively temperate climate and you have all of the ingredients for one of the richest ecosystems in the world.
Of all of the flora and fauna thriving here, salmon are the keystone species — the ecological anchor for everything and everyone.
From 2001 to 2017, the Moore Foundation awarded grants to support work with partners across the North Pacific to ensure that salmon ecosystems remain healthy. And of all of the estuaries and rivers along Canada’s western coastline, the Skeena is one of the most vibrant and productive. The Skeena is one of North America’s last remaining watersheds that is completely intact, over the span of 350 sinuous miles. No dams, not one single fish ladder. Steelhead and all fives species of wild salmon thrive here. The First Nation people — the Metlakatla and Lax Kw’alaams — have depended on Skeena salmon for countless generations.
As the salmon swim upstream in the Skeena to spawn, they provide food for countless wildlife species including grizzly and black bears and wolves: the most dominant salmon lovers. And through these creatures, the salmon also fertilize the surrounding riparian forest. These hungry predators drag salmon carcasses into the forests for a quick meal, where what remains of the fish eventually decomposes and feeds the woods with nutrients captured from the salmons’ time in the open ocean.
When salmon smolts begin the cycle all over again, and move down the many branches of the Skeena, they fan out over the wide estuary on the Pacific edge — Flora, Agnew, and Horsey banks — in stunning numbers. They feed nonstop across these fertile banks, grow, adjust to the new water conditions, and prepare to venture out to the deep blue sea.
Not surprisingly, the steelhead and salmon of the Skeena are critical for the 60,000 people that live in the watershed and the local economies — subsistence, commercial fishing, sport fishing, and tourism. Some estimates place the value of the Skeena fisheries at more than $100 million.
That is why alarm bells went off in communities throughout the watershed and beyond in 2013 when Petronas, a Malaysian-based oil and gas company, proposed a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility on Lelu Island. Lelu is situated in the very heart of Flora, Agnew, and Horsey banks — in the very heart of the Skeena salmon nursing grounds. As one observer put it, there is no one single area on the western coast of Canada that is more valuable for salmon than the Skeena, and the proposed LNG plant couldn’t have been placed in a more sensitive salmon nursery.
The $11 billion project included miles of pipelines to transport the gas from inland fields, a massive processing facility, and construction of an almost mile long suspension bridge from the mainland over Flora Bank (some said it was going to resemble the Golden Gate Bridge). From there, a ¾-mile-long jetty would thrust out over the salmon nursery grounds to the waiting tankers.
Although some local community members were initially supportive of the proposal on strict economic grounds, opposition quickly grew. Thanks to efforts by the non-profit SkeenaWild, many First Nation communities, and numerous partners and funders, including the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Skeena salmon won. In July 2017, after years of protests and meetings, Petronas announced they were abandoning the proposed export facility.
In January 2019, the Prince Rupert Port Authority, who has jurisdiction over the area and supported the original Petronas proposal, announced a development moratorium for Flora, Agnew, and Horsey banks.
First Nation representatives hailed the decision as a win for their heritage and communities, the numerous residents throughout the watershed, and the salmon and the ecosystem they sustain. "The Metlakatla First Nation welcomes the development moratorium on Flora, Agnew, and Horsey Banks in Coast Tsimshian territory,” said Harold Leighton, Chief Councillor for the Metlakatla First Nation.
Greg Knox, SkeenaWild’s Executive Director was also elated by the January announcement. All the way back in 2014, he foreshadowed the key reason for the eventual success. “Even though we are astronomically over-matched in terms of money and political influence, we have something more powerful,” Knox said. “People still have strong connections to salmon, and if proposed development threatens their fish they are willing to stand up and fight.”
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