Introduction
VANCOUVER — Two hundred years ago, Talaysay Campo’s ancestors harvested clams and cockles along the shore of Vancouver’s False Creek. “It was a huge aquaculture site,” Campo, a member of the Squamish First Nation and operations manager of Talaysay Tours, tells Mongabay. Today, little remains of that abundance. False Creek, a narrow 3-kilometer (almost 2-mile) long saltwater tidal inlet traversing the heart of Vancouver, bears decades of urban pollution. However, a grassroots group, the False Creek Friends Society (FCFS), founded in 2021, envisions transforming this blighted waterway into a place where nature thrives and people can safely swim. Their ambition includes making False Creek Canada’s first national urban marine park, contributing to the country’s 30×30 conservation target. But complex jurisdictional divides and historical injustices present significant challenges.
A History of Abundance and Neglect
Indigenous Stewardship
False Creek was once a thriving ecosystem rimmed with rocks, home to octopus and sea cucumber. For millennia, the Squamish and other coastal First Nations harvested seafood and performed ceremonies such as tem lhawt’, offering western hemlock boughs to attract Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii). European settlement in the 19th century led to the destruction of Indigenous villages along the shoreline, forcing First Nations onto reserves. Colonial governments permitted the systematic displacement.
Industrial Exploitation
The inlet became a mecca for sawmills, manufacturing plants, railyards, and warehouses. In 1859, a British sea captain mistakenly believed he was traversing a creek and named it False Creek as a warning. For decades, industries dumped their remnants into the water. The 1986 World Expo on transportation and communication turned 70 hectares (173 acres) of industrial wasteland into futuristic pavilions and temporary event space. In subsequent years, condominiums and a seawall replaced the pavilions, but the water remained polluted. An outfall pipe still releases raw sewage during heavy rains.
The Vision for a National Urban Marine Park
FCFS believes False Creek can be restored. In 2022, they collaborated with Vancouver Park People to conduct a bioblitz, where citizen scientists using iNaturalist recorded over 500 species, including sea asparagus (Salicornia europaea), great blue herons (Ardea herodias), yellow shore crabs (Hemigrapsus oregonensis), shiner surfperches (Cymatogaster aggregata), and mussels (genus Mytilus). These findings bolster arguments for conservation. To determine contamination levels, the Raincoast Foundation will work with FCFS and the city of Vancouver to test the water over the next two years. Peter Ross, senior scientist of Raincoast’s Healthy Waters Program, notes that remediation might require dredging contaminated sediment and improving stormwater infrastructure.
Overcoming Jurisdictional Challenges
Responsibility for False Creek is split among federal (navigation, vessel discharge, fisheries), provincial (foreshore, seabed), and municipal (urban planning, infrastructure) governments. This jurisdictional overload has been a longstanding obstacle, according to Kai Chan, a professor at the Institute for Oceans and Fisheries at UBC. FCFS has explored alternative governance models.
Exploring Environmental Personhood
One model is environmental personhood, where ecosystems are granted legal rights and represented by guardians, often Indigenous groups. Ecuador became the first country to enshrine rights of nature in 2008. By 2025, a study by Putzer, Cook, and Pollock (Journal of Maps, 2025) identified 495 rights of nature initiatives in 40 countries and territories. In Canada, Quebec’s Magpie River received legal personhood in 2021, represented by the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the regional municipality of Minganie.
A Community-Led Future
Mendel Skulski, FCFS’s executive manager since early 2026, considers both the national urban marine park and environmental personhood problematic. He notes that Canada’s national parks were established by asserting control over Indigenous lands, often prohibiting culturally significant practices like harvesting. “The foundational idea of a park is the exclusion of humanity from nature,” Skulski says. Similarly, personhood could limit community use. FCFS is now moving toward a bottom-up, community-led process. They plan citizen assemblies to formulate a collective vision and then present it to lawmakers. “We’re turning all of those many stakeholders and right holders, freeholders, the broadest community into a union that can negotiate for False Creek’s needs,” Skulski explains. They are collaborating with Vancouver Park People to create a map highlighting ecological, historical, and cultural significance.
The Return of Ceremony
Talaysay Campo hopes to bring back tem lhawt’ to False Creek. The ceremony involves offering western hemlock boughs to attract herring spawning. Pollution and industrial overfishing stopped herring from returning, but they are now beginning to reappear. Campo says, “Once people start seeing what this land used to look like, they start growing the relationship and start taking care of it.”