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A family approach to ocean science and management
This spring, resource and environmental management professor Anne Salomon’s lab is debuting a new name and website—but the change represents more than a brand-new look.
Salomon, a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College, was named an SFU Distinguished professor in 2024 in recognition of her work to disrupt and diversify the voices, values, knowledge systems and governance principles that shape ocean science and management.
She and her research family aim to reveal coupled social and ecological processes that underpin our oceans’ resilience, productivity and biodiversity, centring their work under four key themes; social-ecological regime shifts; ancestral mariculture innovations; kelp forest resilience; and ocean climate solutions.
They make use of scientific tools while bringing them into conversation with Indigenous knowledge through collaborations with Coastal Nations.
“We co-design and co-produce research in support of Indigenous-led initiatives,” Salomon says, citing project examples including Coastal Voices, the Clam Garden Network, Sea Gardens Collective and Indigenous Aquaculture Collaborative, among others. “These transdisciplinary collaborations are revitalizing and upholding ancestral Indigenous laws, governance systems and practices that reflect generations of observing, experimenting, experiencing and adapting to environmental change.”
Key components of this approach, she goes on to explain, include uplifting Hereditary Indigenous leaders and their care-taking knowledge, acknowledging past and present harms, bridging sovereign knowledge systems, engaging youth and experimenting with diverse care-taking practices grounded in respect, responsibility, reciprocity and interconnectedness.
There is no better time for this work; the year 2025 marks the halfway point for the United Nations’ Ocean Decade, a ten-year framework for stimulating ocean science and knowledge to advance ocean sustainability. This year's theme is “Ocean Action”.
“Ultimately, making meaningful change towards an ecologically safe and socially just future for our oceans, and all the relations they encompass, demands replacing entrenched power inequities and siloed practices in biodiversity science and ocean policies with equitable governance processes, systems thinking, continuous learning and tangible long-term actions,” Salomon says.
Just as she and her team hope to inspire others with their work, the lab’s new website, as well as a new logo designed by Stz’uminus artist Arianna Augustine, are meant to inspire visitors with imagery from our coastline and artwork from its inhabitants.
However, the biggest change is its new name: the Ocean Relations Collaborative.
“We came up with this new name to better reflect who we are, what we do, how we do it, and perhaps most importantly, why we do it— ‘it’ being co-produced ocean research,” Salomon says.
She further explains that just as relationships are one of the most important things in our lives, so too are they one of the most important products of the collaborative’s work, which both supports resilient social-ecological relationships and seeks to improve our society’s relationship with the ocean.
“This cannot be done by simply generating knowledge. It is done by mobilizing knowledge to people outside the academy, changing ocean policy, changing peoples’ conversations and changing peoples’ minds,” Salomon says. “If we are to mobilize our research outside the academy, then we need to build trusting, legitimate, long-lasting and collaborative relationships with coastal communities, decision makers, and leaders as part of the research process. We needed a name that could speak to everyone in that process.”
To reinforce this concept, everyone at the Ocean Relations Collaborative is listed on the website under different branches of its “family”.
“At the Ocean Relations Collaborative, we all share an affinity for similar values,” Salomon says. “Families offer support, nurturance, and safety as members mature and learn to participate in a community. Eventually, family members fledge and form their own families, while remaining connected to their roots. The Ocean Relations Collaborative has a large and growing extended research family.”
In addition to feeling inspired, Salomon wants visitors exploring the Collaborative’s new website to leave with a sense of hope, purpose, and care:
“Hope that change is possible, that they too can contribute to this change, and that the deep care and curiosity that we hold for the world around us is a part of making that change.”