G’day. Ian Gill here.

I grew up surfing the shores of Australia but have called the Pacific Northwest home for most of my life. I work at the intersection of complex, ambitious ideas and tangible results as a social entrepreneur, non-profit leader and writer.

My work involves building new ways to support bioregionalism, Indigenous community development, conservation and fairness.

About

Ian Gill is a social entrepreneur and non-profit leader who has been at the forefront of conservation economics, bioregionalism and Indigenous community development for more than three decades. He is:

A founding partner of Salmon Nation Trust, an LLC investing in bioregionalism from Northern California to the north slope of Alaska
Founding director of Magic Canoe, a solutions-focused storytelling platform
Co-founder of Upstart & Crow, a literary incubator and non-profit that reimagines and invests in storytelling in diverse forms
Co-founder of The Winnipeg Boldness Project, a social innovation vehicle that explored new ideas for improving early childhood development outcomes in that city’s North End
Former president of Discourse Media, a digital media startup
Former Senior Fellow at McConnell Foundation, with a focus on Indigenous development and media and communications
Former President & CEO of Ecotrust US and founder, CEO and President of Ecotrust Canada and Ecotrust Australia.

At Ecotrust, Ian helped build and run multi-million dollar non-profits with more than 100 staff across three countries, launching original, innovative programming in collaboration with boards that included Jane Jacobs, Terri-Lynn Williams Davidson, C.S. “Buzz” Holling, Ric Young, Thomas Berger, Patrick Dodson, Don Henry, Dalee Sambo Dorough and many more. Ecotrust Canada’s impact ranged from the creation of the Aboriginal Mapping Network; management of Iisaak Forest Resources, then an Indigenous-owned, FSC-certified forest company; facilitating the return to the Haíłzaqv (Heiltsuk) Nation of the Koeye River Lodge, now home to one of the most effective land-based language, science and culture camps on the coast; the incubation of ThisFish and Climate Smart Business; the design and launch of a unique revolving loan fund, Ecotrust Canada Capital, which disbursed hundreds of thousands of dollars to conservation-based businesses with private and public capital; capitalising Canada’s first conservation fisheries licence bank; and the launch of Ecotrust Australia. Ecotrust and Ecotrust Canada worked closely with dozens of Indigenous Nations across the Pacific Northwest, building trusted relationships and contributing to significant, measurable results. Ian is responsible for raising more than $50 million in operating and capital resources over the course of his career.

Prior to joining Ecotrust, Ian worked as an award-winning writer and broadcaster at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and as a senior reporter and editor at The Vancouver Sun. He is a contributing editor at The Tyee, and contributor to The Narwhal, Hakai Magazine and others. He wrote and hosted documentary reports for CBC’s The National, The Journal, Venture and its Vancouver newsroom, along with CTV and History Television. His books include No News is Bad News: Canada’s Media Collapse and What Comes Next (2016); All That We Say Is Ours: Guujaaw and the Reawakening of the Haida Nation (2009; reprinted in 2022); Haida Gwaii: Journeys Through the Queen Charlotte Islands (1997); and Hiking on the Edge: Canada's West Coast Trail (1995).

Ian has also acted as director of Vancity Credit Union, ShoreBank Pacific, the Na na Kila Institute and the Clayoquot Biosphere Project; a member of the Forest Faculty Advisory Committee at the University of British Columbia; and an Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University.

He lives with his wife Zoe Grams on unceded Nuučaan̓ułʔatḥ (Nuu-Chah-Nulth) territory and on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territories, where Upstart & Crow works its magic.

Current Projects

I am working to develop a new bioregional initiative, Nature State: A New Atlas of People and Place, to help meet the urgent need to find practical, decolonised and community-centered ways to create economic and social prosperity within the limits of our natural capital. We need to build bridges between systems thinking and systems change — not just on paper, but in communities, right now, where the effects of climate change and unchecked resource extraction are urgent and real.

Read more here.
Inspired by the leadership of Ecuador, New Zealand and the Innu of Labrador — among others — I am intrigued by opportunities to use legal avenues to conserve and protect critical ecosystems and non-human species that are essential to the health and prosperity of Nature States. In particular, I’m interested in using a rights framework to protect wild salmon, which are fundamental to the social, cultural and economic health of Indigenous nations in Salmon Nation. I’m exploring how Rights of Nature and Indigenous Rights intersect and support one another.
Open-pen salmon farms — both on the West Coast of Canada and across the globe — have been proven, time and again, to harm ecosystems and the communities that rely on them. Working with various Nations, alongside non-profit and civic partners, I am exploring ways to overcome consistent misinformation to ensure these farms are removed from our waters.
With Upstart & Crow, we are pursuing new ways to address the duality of political polarisation and ennui through the exploration of, and amplification of, authors, writers and thinkers who can help us navigate this complex time. In particular, we build programming that uses the written word to build greater civic engagement, debate and sense of possibility.