The shellfish that have sustained coastal communities along British Columbia's shores for thousands of years are facing a quieter threat than the ones that make headlines. No single storm, no visible spill. Just seawater, gradually changing—becoming more acidic, losing oxygen—in ways that make it harder for oysters, clams, and mussels to grow, reproduce, and survive.
Ocean acidification is sometimes called the "other carbon problem." Both ocean acidification and hypoxia are driven by the same emissions reshaping the climate, but their effects accumulate slowly, below the surface, easy to overlook until the damage is already done. Hypoxia—driven by nutrient pollution and warming waters—depletes oxygen levels, threatening fish and other marine life and compounding the damage acidification causes. British Columbia is a hotspot for both, with changes happening faster here than the global average. Financial losses to the seafood industry from acidification alone are projected to reach hundreds of millions of dollars by 2050. Coastal and Indigenous communities will bear a disproportionate share of that burden.
On March 3, 2026, 115 scientists, community members, industry representatives, First Nations leaders, and government officials gathered in Nanaimo—and online—to take stock of where things stand and where they need to go. The BC Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Action Forum, hosted by the Tula Foundation, was both an assessment of progress and a call to keep moving.
The forum arrived at a consequential moment. In 2023, the Province released the BC Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Action Plan, the first coordinated framework for addressing these threats at a provincial scale. Alongside it, the Province provided $2 million for the Climate Ready BC Seafood Program, administered by the Tula Foundation, which funded 11 projects aimed at turning the Action Plan's goals into on-the-ground results.
Those projects were front and centre in Nanaimo. Through lightning talks and panel discussions—and the premiere of a short documentary on the program—researchers and community partners shared what they had built: expanded ocean monitoring networks, new tools for aquaculture operators and hatcheries, and data systems designed to put real-time information into the hands of the people who need it most. Knowledge and training flowed back to Indigenous and coastal communities, not just upward into academic literature.
The forum also provided a chance to further align BC's ocean acidification and hypoxia initiatives with provincial strategies. Charlie Short, Executive Director of Coastal Marine Stewardship and Fisheries for the BC Government, outlined activities for the Province's Coastal Marine Strategy over the next 3 years. A community roundtable discussion, guided by Dr. Myron Roth, Director of Climate Risk Management for the BC Government, highlighted how current actions and future priorities could support the Coastal Marine Strategy—a reminder that ocean acidification and hypoxia work isn't happening in isolation, but as part of a larger effort to secure BC's coastal future.
International dimensions were addressed by Jessie Turner of the OA Alliance, who placed BC's work within global frameworks including the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science and the International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification. "British Columbia is a huge part of the OAH legacy effort along the west coast of North America," Turner said.
Throughout the day, Indigenous voices grounded the conversation in something the data alone cannot fully convey: the lived reality of coastal change across generations.
Chief Harley Chappell of the Semiahmoo First Nation spoke on Indigenous food sovereignty and shared responsibility. "We as Indigenous people, we talk all the time of how these are our relatives in this ocean," he said. "These are the ones that don't have voice, and it's our job and our responsibility to bring them voice."
Trent Moraes, Deputy Chief of the Skidegate Band Council and Co-Chair of the Indigenous Climate Adaptation Working Group, was direct about the stakes. "Climate change is not an abstract model to us," he said. "It is visible and lived in our communities."
The importance of being able to harvest and pass on traditional seafoods emerged as a recurring theme—a reminder that what is at stake is not just an industry, but a way of life and a relationship with the coast that stretches back far longer than any western monitoring record.
The forum also looked outward at the data infrastructure needed to sustain this work. Dr. Charles Hannah of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans presented on deoxygenation trends across BC waters. The Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System Pacific ran a workshop on accessing and integrating ocean acidification and hypoxia datasets in Canada, and previewed an early visualization tool designed to support on-the-go decision-making for hatcheries and coastal communities.
Discussion turned to the challenge of translating scientific monitoring into indicators that decision makers can actually use—connecting measurements in the water column to impacts on species and communities in plain, accessible terms. Continued collaboration and sustained funding were identified as essential, with the Canadian Ocean Acidification Community of Practice named as a key mechanism for keeping that coordination alive beyond the forum itself.
British Columbia has the science, the partnerships, and now the policy architecture to respond to ocean acidification and hypoxia with the seriousness they deserve. But the work is not finished; it is beginning. As Wiley Evans of the Hakai Institute put it: "It was absolutely clear we needed to do something, and this is a step in that direction. It shouldn't be the only step. It should be step one."
The BC Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Action Forum was hosted by the Tula Foundation on March 3, 2026, in Nanaimo, BC. Forum documentation and resources are available at oceanacidification.ca.
