Apply to the British Columbia Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund: 1. Overview

Step 1. Overview

The British Columbia Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund (BCSRIF) aims to:

• ensure the fish and seafood sector in B.C. is positioned for long-term environmental and economic sustainability
• support the protection and restoration of wild Pacific salmon and other fish stocks

Through the fund, we support:

• Innovation to encourage the development of new technologies to:
• increase productivity
• help meet conservation and sustainability objectives, including the protection and restoration of wild B.C. stocks such as Pacific salmon
• Infrastructure to encourage capital investments in new products, processes or technologies to support the:
• advancement of sustainable fishing practices
• protection and restoration of wild B.C. stocks, including Pacific salmon
• Science partnerships to support collaborations with academia and other research institutions to:
• improve our understanding of impacts to wild stocks
• develop sustainable fishing practices

Funding is available to support new projects until March 31, 2026. We will provide opportunities to submit applications until all available funds have been allocated. Based on the high level of interest in previous application opportunities, we expect to receive a large number of applications in 2022.

Current priorities for BCSRIF

One of the key factors that we will assess to determine whether a project will receive funding is its alignment with the BCSRIF program priorities.

• Salmon ecosystems
• Research, education and monitoring initiatives as well as community-based hatcheries and stewardship programs to advance scientific understanding, build public awareness and contribute to the recovery of salmon stocks and their freshwater, estuarine and high seas environments
• Salmon habitats
• Integrated salmon habitat planning, monitoring and restoration projects to rehabilitate and build resilience in salmon habitats prone to multiple pressures
• Sustainable fisheries
• Projects that increase the value and quality of B.C. seafood products through sustainable fishing and processing practices, including Indigenous, commercial and recreational fisheries, and environmental stewardship in the aquaculture sector

In addition to these funding priorities, we will prioritize projects that address:

• climate change impacts to salmon
• Climate change adaptation measures focused on salmon stocks and aquatic ecosystems, including strategies to respond to or mitigate future impacts of extreme weather events
• New investments in coastal and ocean areas that have a high potential to absorb and store carbon, like tidal wetlands, seagrass meadows, kelp forests and riparian habitats
• priority salmon stocks
• Multi-species, place-based and threat-based approaches to advance the recovery of at-risk species
• Projects related to priority stocks facing greater threat and with higher likelihood for recovery
• Indigenous participation and knowledge
• Indigenous-led projects and/or Indigenous participation, including collaborative assessment and monitoring projects that will inform ongoing habitat and fisheries work
• Projects that improve the availability of Indigenous knowledge related to salmon or other species of cultural significance with the potential to inform planning and policy decisions