About the 2024 Salish Sea Symposium
The 2024 Salish Sea Symposium will be held virtually and in-person on January 23-24, 2024, at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The theme is “building on our past, advancing our future." More information to come on how to attend.
We are accepting proposals for key-note speeches, panels, sessions and information booths for the Symposium. Interested presenters may reach out to the OPP Salish Sea Strategy Team at PACSalishSeaStrategy-strategieDeLaMerDesSalish@tc.gc.ca.
This is an opportunity to showcase programs, research or initiatives by sharing your organization’s efforts, success stories, best practices, partnerships, and what you hope to accomplish in the Salish Sea moving forward. This is an opportunity to share and learn together about the importance of the Salish Sea and protecting this critical ecosystem.
Through this Symposium, we hope to:
- Raise awareness of existing ocean protection/marine-transportation related work in the Salish Sea.
- Highlight successes, best practices, or re-occurring challenges.
- Share information and knowledge-based products, tools and learnings that can improve understanding and support decision-making.
- Identify linkages, partnerships or collaboration that could improve initiative outcomes.
- Share stories to understand the importance of the Salish Sea and its ecosystem, to build collective understanding of your vision for this region.
What is the Salish Sea?
The Salish Sea is one of the world’s largest inland seas, spanning the international waters between Campbell River, British Columbia and Olympia, Washington State. The Salish Sea includes major cities like Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle, and has become a vital route for international, national and local trade. It is home to Indigenous Peoples, coastal communities, and endangered species like the Southern Resident killer whale. The Salish Sea is culturally significant for Indigenous Peoples, providing food, medicine and travel for generations. It is named after the Coast Salish peoples, who were some of the region's first inhabitants.
What is the Salish Sea Strategy?
Within these waters, there are hundreds of actions being taken to protect the environment and support economic activity, involving various levels of governments, Indigenous and coastal communities, environmental organizations, and industry. The goal of the Salish Sea Strategy is to establish a shared level of understanding, to inform economic and environmental planning and decision-making. By building a community of participation and collaboration, together we can protect these waters, and support economic prosperity.
Protecting the Salish Sea while supporting economic prosperity
The Salish Sea Strategy, part of the Oceans Protection Plan (OPP), is a five-year project to increase collaboration and support existing work on protecting the waters, transportation, and supply chain initiatives in the Salish Sea. It will accomplish this by:
- Establishing long-term ways to bring people together and share information, including Indigenous engagement processes, a joint planning committee, and advisory groups.
- Fostering collaboration on shared interests, goals, and projects.
- Building an inventory tool that captures relevant activities within the Salish Sea to support analysis, improve effectiveness of existing work, and inform priorities for those operating in the region.
- Analysing shared research to determine the best way forward that balances the environmental impacts with economic benefits.
- Delivering symposiums to showcase existing oceans protection and marine transportation-related work and foster connections across participants.
How to get involved
To learn more about the initiative and to stay updated on symposiums, contact PACSalishSeaStrategy-strategieDeLaMerDesSalish@tc.gc.ca
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