The Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR) is a non-profit, 501(c)(3)-exempt, marine resource conservation and research organization with headquarters in San Francisco, California, and an active Northwest Regional Office in Eugene, Oregon.

As food providers that harvest and provide seafood for America’s tables, the fishing families that we represent have always known that our way of life and the prosperity of our coastal fishing- dependent communities is utterly dependent upon society maintaining healthy ocean ecosystems as well as biologically intact and unpolluted inshore watersheds and estuaries. This is one reason the west coast fishing industry has always felt a very strong conservation mandate for protecting and working to restore damaged salmon habitat, protecting essential fish habitat in the oceans, and bringing the best available science to bear in order to maintain well-managed, fully sustainable and biologically productive ocean fisheries.

IFR embodies and expands upon that long-established fishing industry marine conservation ethic. Established in 1993 by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), the largest organization of commercial fishing families on the U.S. west coast, IFR is responsible for carrying out the sustainable fishery research, watershed restoration and marine habitat conservation initiatives of working fishing men and women. Initially, IFR helped fishing-dependent communities in California and the Pacific Northwest address numerous salmon protection and watershed restoration issues, with particular focus on protecting valuable salmon habitats from the negative impacts of impassable dams, excessive water diversions, toxic pollution, environmentally destructive forestry practices and other poorly thought out land and water uses that needlessly kill valuable salmon runs. IFR’s original Pacific Salmon Restoration Program is still one of its strongest efforts, and has had many successes. Since 1998, however, IFR’s range of programs has also greatly expanded to encompass marine and watershed conservation projects and various ocean resource policy debates at the regional, national, and international levels.

This has especially been true as accelerating ocean industrial development (e.g., deep-sea mining, offshore oil rigs, open-ocean net-pen aquaculture, and poorly planned ocean energy development) has increased risks and biological threats for the many fragile ocean ecosystems that our coastal, fishing-dependent communities rely upon for their livelihoods.

We are also working on pathways for coastal fishing communities to better adapt to accelerating climate changes, impacts which are already hitting coastal communities hard, including closing down some traditional fisheries, and sometimes shifting fish migration routes in unprecedented ways. Thanks in part to funding provided by private foundation grants, government contracts, and individual donations, IFR continues to work towards its vision of global sustainable fisheries that support diverse and abundant local fishing-dependent coastal communities, working in harmony with other ocean users.