What is the Cost of Closing a Fishery? - Bursary Winner Lindsay Begemann
- Jun 10
- 4 min read
Congratulations to Lindsay Begemann, winner of the 2025 Buck Suzuki Legacy Bursary!
Lindsay is pursuing a Master of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University, with a focus on how to balance social, ecological, and economic values in fisheries management decisions.
Before starting her master’s, Lindsay coordinated the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ Integrated Fisheries Management Plans (IFMPs) for Pacific salmon—documents that outline the laws, policies, and guidelines for how fisheries are managed. This role gave her firsthand insight into the complexities of fisheries management, particularly the challenge of balancing conservation needs with access for First Nations and other fishing groups.
Motivated by these challenges, Lindsay is expanding her expertise in resource management. She is deeply passionate about restoring Pacific salmon as a primary food source for Indigenous and coastal communities and aims to integrate social, ecological, and economic perspectives into fisheries management. Through her research, she hopes to help shape decisions that sustain both healthy marine ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.
Lindsay’s work in her own words:
What is a challenge facing marine ecosystems, fisheries, or coastal communities that you care deeply about?
Many culturally iconic and economically valuable fish populations in Pacific Canada - including salmon, herring, and halibut have experienced dramatic declines and, in some cases, have collapsed over the past several decades (Beamish et al., 2004). These declines have deeply impacted ecosystems, coastal communities, and Indigenous livelihoods that have long depended on these fisheries for food, employment and ways of life (Atlas et al., 2021).
To address these declines, fisheries management has often relied on spatial closures – geographically defined closures that restrict fishing access – to protect vulnerable fish populations and their habitats (Bentley et al., 2004; O’Keefe et al., 2014; Robb et al., 2011). While closures are precautionary tools when data are limited, they are frequently criticized as blunt instruments relatively straightforward to implement (Bentley et al., 2004), they are often criticized as blunt instruments (Abbott & Haynie, 2012). They may not fully account for ecological interactions between target and non-target species, and impose disproportionate socio-economic and cultural impacts on small-scale and Indigenous fishers (Atlas et al., 2022; Hattam et al., 2014; Walters et al., 2019). Moreover, closures do not guarantee population recovery, especially if they lack effective monitoring or adaptive management.
I am passionate about finding ways to manage fisheries in ways that both protect vulnerable populations and sustain the coastal communities that have relied on salmon for generations. This is a difficult trade off. Conservation measures, like closures, need to be effective and equitable. Ultimately, closures are only one instrument of many in the fisheries management toolkit to address population declines – and statistical analyses can help us understand if this tool is working or if better ones should be implemented.
How do your studies, career goals, or current work connect to this issue?
For my Master of Resource Management at Simon Fraser University, I am evaluating the effectiveness of the 2021 commercial chum salmon fishery closure on British Columbia’s Central Coast. Chum populations in this area have declined by over 90% from 1960-2020, prompting the fishery to close under the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative (PSSI). Yet, this closure was implemented with limited information on the abundances of non-target species like sockeye and steelhead (Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2024), and without a rigorous analysis of the socio-economic impacts of the closure on fishery participants (Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2023).
My research uses robust statistical methods to assess whether the closure is achieving its intended conservation outcomes, and to understand its broader effects on fishery participants. This research supports the goals of the Fisheries Resources Reconciliation Agreement (FRRA), which establishes a co governance framework for fisheries management between eight First Nations in central and northern coastal B.C. and the federal government (Government of Canada, 2022). By integrating ecological and socio-economic data, this research aims to inform more adaptive, inclusive and equitable fisheries management decisions. This research is carried out in partnership with the Central Coast Indigenous Resource Alliance, Wild Salmon Center, and Nuxalk First Nation.
Literature Cited
Abbott, J. K., & Haynie, A. C. (2012). What are we protecting? Fisher behavior and the unintended consequences of spatial closures as a fishery management tool. Ecological Applications, 22(3), 762–777. https://doi.org/10.1890/11-1319.1
ARC Institute. (2024). Aquatic Research Cooperative Institute. ARC Institute. https://www.aquatic research-cooperative.ca
Atlas, W. I., Wilson, K. L., Whitney, C. K., Moody, J. E., Service, C. N., Reid, M., & Sloat, M. R. (2022). Quantifying regional patterns of collapse in British Columbia Central Coast chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) populations since 1960. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 79(12), 2072–2086. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2022-0013
Beamish, R. J., Benson, A. J., Sweeting, R. M., & Neville, C. M. (2004). Regimes and the history of the major fisheries off Canada’s west coast. Progress in Oceanography, 60(2), 355–385. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2004.02.009
Bentley, N., Davies, C. R., McNeill, S. E., & Davies, N. M. (2004). A framework for evaluating spatial closures as a fisheries management tool.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada. (2023). Engagement Summary—PSSI Longer Term Commercial Closures and Licence Retirement Program 2022 (1).
Fisheries and Oceans Canada. (2024). Pacific region final integrated fisheries management plan, July 1, 2024—June 30, 2025: Salmon, northern BC. Government of Canada, 23–2366, 437.
Government of Canada, F. and O. C. (2022, August 3). Fisheries Resources Reconciliation Agreement (FRRA) between Coastal First Nations and Canada | Pacific Region | Fisheries and Oceans Canada. https://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/reconciliation/docs/frra-arrh-eng.html
Hattam, C. E., Mangi, S. C., Gall, S. C., & Rodwell, L. D. (2014). Social impacts of a temperate fisheries closure: Understanding stakeholders’ views. Marine Policy, 45, 269–278.
O’Keefe, C. E., Cadrin, S. X., & Stokesbury, K. D. E. (2014). Evaluating effectiveness of time/area closures, quotas/caps, and fleet communications to reduce fisheries bycatch. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 71(5), 1286–1297. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fst063
Robb, C. K., Bodtker, K. M., Wright, K., & Lash, J. (2011). Commercial fisheries closures in marine protected areas on Canada’s Pacific coast: The exception, not the rule. Marine Policy, 35(3), 309–316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2010.10.010
Walters, C., English, K., Korman, J., & Hilborn, R. (2019). The managed decline of British Columbia’s commercial salmon fishery. Marine Policy, 101, 25–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2018.12.014
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