Salmon Nation CoLabs is determined to address the polycrisis from the bottom up by transforming the system of finance. In flowing capital to support regeneration (instead of extraction) and prioritizing accountability to community and nature (instead of profit) - we will shape new patterns of being in reciprocity with the land and each other.

Given this, we focus on how we resource the local-led innovations that will allow watersheds across this bioregion to demonstrate what a more hopeful and thriving future could look like. Money is energy, and empowering local people to self-determine what it means to thrive will involve radically changing how capital flows to grassroots efforts.

CoLabs grows its impact through the formation of small, distributed collaborations (Labs). These Labs each have their specific approach to flowing finance to bioregions - but work as a family of collaborators to cross pollinate ideas, relationships, and collective momentum with each other. Each of our Labs contains a full spectrum of collaborators, offering a synergy of perspectives.

To move our current economy towards valuing and rewarding regeneration - each of our Labs is focused on launching an initiative with one or more of these three key areas of innovation: the rights of nature to thrive, ecosystem service markets, and governance that is in service to life. Funds raised from the BioFi Pathfinder GitCoin round will be used to support the ongoing operations of our Labs.
Some of our active Labs include:

Okanagan Catalyst Network

• The Okanagan bioregion is the food basket of British Columbia and its waters feeds the Columbia and Fraser Rivers Basins. Through the Bringing the Salmon Home partnership across three First Nations (Sylix Okanagan, Ktunaxa, and Secwépemc), they have brought sockeye salmon back to the Okanagan from a low of 3,000 (25 years ago) to 800,000 this year making up 70% of the sockeye that returned to the Columbia River basin - the mightiest salmon river in the world. The story of renewal and regeneration here is inspiring, and tremendous but also vulnerable to the loss of government funding and industrial agriculture. We are working with and weaving together impact investors, university partners, producers, food businesses, indigenous entrepreneurs, and industry associations to identify strategic investments and unite local people into a One Okanagan alliance that supports, values, and regeneratively finances the work of people who are stewarding the land, waters, and salmon of this place. To find out more, please visit our Notion page.

Salmon Nation Rematriation Fund

• Governing how financial resources flow is a key issue of our time. How do we come together as a people to make decisions on behalf of future generations of all life in this bioregion? How do we invest financial resources in ways that honor people and place? The Rematriation Fund will focus on capitalizing a fund and convening indigenous women across the Salmon Nation bioregion and beyond to innovate governance values, principles, structure, and processes that honor the rights of nature to thrive and how humans as part of nature can be in rights relations with the land and each other. It is intended that the living example of this Fund will inspire and cross pollinate similar bioregional funds across Salmon Nation and beyond.

Our Bioregion of Home

Salmon Nation is a bioregion defined by the traditional extent of wild Pacific salmon in North American - from the Salinas River in California to the North Slopes of Alaska. Salmon show us how we are connected to the land, the waters and each other. In this bioregion defined by salmon - indigenous people are reclaiming meaningful relationships to their lands and waters on their own terms, and playing an increasingly influential role in their territories’ cultural, economic, scientific and legal evolution. It is also where a symbiosis is emerging between old and new ways of living, of two-eyed seeing through both indigenous knowledge and western perspectives, of re-interpreting — through art, song, theater, new media, language, and unlikely collaborations in all manner of experiments at the watershed level — how we share wisdom and resources in ways that are more equitable, and ultimately richer and more meaningful for people and place.

History/Context

The idea of Salmon Nation has been around for 30+ years through an organization called Ecotrust, founded in 1992 by Spencer Beebe. One of the first bioregional organizations to serve people and place, Ecotrust’s focused on the Salmon Nation bioregion using a triple-bottom line approach to all its work - environment, equity, and economy. Cheryl Chen, the founder of CoLabs spent 12+ years working at Ecotrust in several capacities and is a founding partner of the Salmon Nation Trust - a public benefit company whose purpose is to inspire, enable, and invest in regenerative development in our home. She is also a founding member of the Magic Canoe, a non profit dedicated to amplifying and uplifting stories of hope, connection, and ‘what works’ in Salmon Nation. Even though Salmon Nation CoLabs is a new venture, it has spawned from decades of deep relationships and trust building under the Salmon Nation bioregional frame.