Indigenous stream caretaking for Pacific salmon: ancestral lifeways to guide restoration, relationships, rights, and responsibilities

Restoring the relationships, rights, and responsibilities of Indigenous Peoples to their salmon kin is central to a sustainable and just future with Pacific salmon, particularly as Nations lead the restoration of freshwater salmon habitat in their territories. As a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers from across British Columbia, we come together in a respectful and transparent way to uphold ancestral Indigenous Pacific salmon stream caretaking knowledge, longstanding Indigenous rights and relationships to land and waters, and our joint responsibilities to care for these watersheds. To do this, we begin by describing traditional governance systems that house Indigenous salmon stream caretaking practices. Through a literature review and conversations with co-authors, we then describe eight Indigenous salmon stream caretaking practices. Finally, we share three contemporary focal stories of Indigenous salmon restoration projects that uphold ancestral knowledge; “Syilx sockeye restoration”, “səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) led salmon habitat restoration in xʔə’l̓ilwətaʔɬ (Indian River Watershed)”, and nuučaanuɫ (Nuu-chah-nulth) Peoples and salmon: responsive methods through steadfast lifeways’. We present stream caretaking knowledge and the focal stories as learning opportunities that may guide future human-salmon relationships and restoration.