Our Impact: Salmon Victories and Shark Champions with SeaLegacy

Vital Impacts is proud to have supported with our inaugural fine-art photographic sale for conservation is SeaLegacy, whose mission is to create healthy and abundant oceans, for us and the planet. 

Vital Impacts funds were used to support two of SeaLegacy’s major initiatives. Firstly, we helped make possible the Salmon Hub: a new salmon campaign advocating for the restoration of the Snake River in the Pacific Northwest and the removal of salmon farms from the ocean in British Columbia. The campaign has gathered more than 12,000 signatories. 

On June 22, Minister Joyce Murray officially announced plans to bring the era of open-net salmon farms along the BC coast to an end by 2025, a substantial win in the 30-year effort to protect wild salmon. 

As well, the results of a new study to understand the best way to help wild salmon populations, concluded that breaching four dams in the Lower Snake River Basin in Washington state provides the best and only reasonable opportunity to promote the recovery of salmon.  

Secondly, Vital Impacts funds supported the creation of the fourth episode in Only One’s series Tide Turners, a series which features changemakers taking vital action for the global ocean and their communities. 

The episode, "Shark Protector, Carolina Ramírez" highlights the work of Carolina Ramirez, a Costa Rica-born scuba diving instructor and shark activist, whose life passion is to share the beauty of the ocean with others and teach the importance of sharks for marine life and the survival of our planet. Ramirez is the founder of Unidos Por Los Tiburones (“United for Sharks”), an audiovisual campaign involving 91 Costa Rican and international organizations committed to shark conservation. 

We are proud to have had the chance to partner with SeaLegacy and Only One on these initiatives. Thank you for making this work possible. Please get involved, explore these campaigns, watch this wonderful film, and follow Vital Impacts as we share more exciting updates.

Photos by Cristina Mittermeier and Andy Mann