Resilient Coasts for Salmon - Empowering Communities with Nature-based Solutions to Adapt to Climate Change

• Main Author: Sheehan, Kyla
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Western CEDAR 2022
• Subjects: Canada; Pacific; First Nations
• Online Access: https://cedar.wwu.edu/ssec/2022ssec/allsessions/153; https://cedar.wwu.edu/context/ssec/article/3315/viewcontent/171_fe2c88a594674cb486ca43afc50ab9c0.pdf

Coastal communities in the Salish Sea are facing unprecedented challenges as climate change continues to evolve. A five-year project collaboration between the Pacific Salmon Foundation and the Stewardship Centre for BC, called Resilient Coasts for Salmon: Nature-based Solutions for Climate Change (RC4S), is working to empower citizens by providing nature-based solutions that encourage resiliency for coastal communities and ecosystems. Utilizing a multifaceted approach, RC4S is raising public awareness about climate change impacts in local South and East Coast Vancouver Island communities and nature-based solutions to help adapt to those threats. RC4S is also building professional capacity in shoreline restoration through Green Shores® training, and creating opportunities for community members to learn about their local shorelines through a citizen science mapping project and Green Shores demonstration sites. The demonstration sites will also create visibility for nature-based solutions in action and will be developed in partnership with First Nations and other local governments such as the K’ómoks First Nation, Comox Valley Regional District, Capital Regional District, as well as stewardship groups and organizations, such as World Wildlife Fund Canada, and Peninsula Streams. All project elements are intended to address the findings from a preliminary survey showing that although the majority (74%) of local Vancouver Island community members are concerned about climate change, most (79%) had only minimal or moderate knowledge of what the predicted climate change impacts are for communities along the Salish Sea. The underlying vision for the project is to empower citizens to develop resiliency to climate change, now and into the future.