fisheries habitat restoration

Water in the Native World Webinar Series: Walleye Ogaawag Spearing in the Portage Waterway, Michigan: Integrating Mixed Methodology for Insight on an Important Tribal Fishery

Year

Water in the Native World,” a special issue on tribal water research was just released by the Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education. This is the second time, Dr. Karletta Chief, the PI of the Community Engagement Core of the University of Arizona Superfund Research Center (UA SRC) has served as a guest editor to compile research highlighting important water research in tribal communities. Not only is the guest editor Indigenous but in this Special Issue nearly all of the co-authors are Indigenous and three publications (Bulltail and Walter, 2020; Conroy-Ben and Crowder, 2020, and Martin et al., 2020) are led by an Indigenous lead author.

Download full articles from the special issue.

Contact: Dr. Karletta Chief, Assistant Specialist & Professor, Environmental Physics and Hydrology

July 1, 2020

Speaker:
Andrew T. Kozich
took a long and unusual path to his current position as Environmental Science Department Chair at Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College (KBOCC) in northern Michigan.

In the 1990s, Andrew worked his way through his undergrad studies by supporting himself as a professional musician. It took eight years to complete a B.S. in Resource Ecology (an Earth Science program) from the University of Michigan.

After a few years away from school and a few other career experiments, he entered graduate school at Michigan Tech University at age 34. He completed a M.S. in Environmental Policy in 2009 and a graduate certificate in Sustainable Water Resources in 2010.

Around this time, Andrew discovered that there was a small Tribal college, KBOCC, 30 miles down the road. As he continued his graduate studies unsure of his direction, he enrolled as a part-time guest student to explore Native American history and culture for personal enrichment. He studied under James Loonsfoot, a widely-respected elder who has since passed away.

After two semesters as a KBOCC student, the Environmental Science Department Chair position was vacated and the Dean of Instruction asked Andrew if he was interested. Andrew’s original career vision from long ago was to work at a small college where he might make a greater and more personal impact on students. He interviewed and was hired on the spot in early 2011. His Michigan Tech advisor was initially not happy with this decision.

The decision to join KBOCC provided needed vision for his doctoral research and opened countless doors. Already wading into the interdisciplinary field of water resource management and policy, his research took on added cultural emphasis that was greatly enhanced by his experiences at KBOCC. He continued taking KBOCC courses while slowly progressing with his research. He was assisted by a GK-12 Global Watershed Fellowship and later an American Indian College Fund Mellon Fellowship. He finally completed his Ph.D. in 2016, using mixed-methods research to compare Native and non-Native perspectives on climate change and water resources in the Great Lakes area. In 2017 Andrew completed his KBOCC Associate Degree in Anishinaabe Studies.

Andrew has published 10 articles in peer-reviewed journals and contributed numerous conference presentations and panel sessions. He was recognized as KBOCC’s “Faculty Member of the Year” in 2012 and 2018. However, his greatest pride comes from his measurable accomplishments at KBOCC, including a 100% job placement rate of graduates, mentoring over 30 student internships, guiding over 20 student presentations at national conferences, engaging six student co-authors on publications, and overseeing a significant increase in his program’s enrollment since 2011. He has also developed a new KBOCC program in Sustainability. Beyond the classroom, his greatest joy is engaging under-represented students in community-based research that provides valuable outcomes for the Tribe and meaningful experiences for his students. His presentation today reflects these objectives.

All content courtesy University of Arizona Cooperative Extension

Honoring Nations All-Stars Profile: The Red Lake Walleye Recovery Program

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In 1997, the members of the Red Lake Fisheries Association (RLFA), a cooperative established by com-mercial fishermen from the Red Lake Nation,1 voted to discontinue all commercial gillnet fishing on Red Lake for the upcoming season. An overwhelming majority of the RLFA’s members supported the decision, despite its direct impact on their livelihoods. Less than a year later, the Red Lake Tribal Council passed a resolution banning hook-and-line subsistence fishing for walleye, effectively ending all fishing on tribal waters. Hundreds of families lost income from the demise of commercial walleye fishing, and with the overall fishing ban, every tribal citizen lost access to a significant food source. But witnessing firsthand the stark decline of the walleye and recognizing that a vital cultural and economic resource was slipping away, the Red Lake Nation had taken a stand: it needed to do everything it could to save the walleye and make its iconic lake healthy again.

Resource Type
Citation

Dolan, Jamie; Ian Record; Miriam Jorgensen; and Eileen Briggs. "Honoring Nations All-Stars Profile: The Red Lake Walleye Recovery Program". Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2013.

Honoring Nations: Rick George: The Umatilla Basin Salmon Recovery Project: Building on Success

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Rick George, former Program Manager for Rights Protection and Environmental Planning with the Confederated tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, shares what he sees as the foundational characteristics of the Umatilla Basin Salmon Recovery Project and other examples of successful, sustainable nation-rebuilding initiatives that Umatilla has developed.

People
Resource Type
Citation

George, Rick. "The Umatilla Basin Salmon Recovery Project: Building on Success." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 11, 2004. Presentation.

Amy Besaw:

"And next up we have Rick George from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation. Rick is the -- excuse me while I look -- environmental protection and rights protection manager for the nation."

Rick George:

"Good afternoon, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. It's an honor to be able to speak to you this afternoon. I'm here at the behest of Donald Sampson, he sends his apologies and he also sends me to give them to you. We lost a tribal leader a few weeks ago and he was a very close friend of mine and he was my boss and I want to honor him today with my words.

One of the most important lessons I've taken from these last couple of days -- and I was not prepared for it, it's not something I considered in coming here -- was the lesson from the younger generation. The youth, the young adults, the recognition that this program has given them and the role models that you provide not just your youth but all of us. I applaud that and I think that if there is a standard of measure of success of this Harvard program of honoring nations it is that. It is that you have recognized the younger generation and you have singled them out in a national award recognition program that I think supersedes all of the other recognition processes and programs and things that I'm aware of. And I just hats off to you all. It's been a pleasure, it's been an honor to be here with you for the last couple of days.

And for that reason I just want to say thanks to Harvard and I want to say thanks to Ford and to the Casey foundations. I don't know if you have other supporters, I'm sure you do, but just watching the younger folks here I don't think there's a better way to represent the success of your funding, of your contribution, of your support and of the work of the people that make this program what it is. So thank you very much. And I think when you talk about how to sustain programs, how to make good things continue, that's one of the first things you do, you recognize them. You honor them and you give thanks for them and that's what we're doing and that's what this Harvard program does. So I think that's one of the first key components in maintaining and actually building on successes.

I work for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, which is located in northeastern Oregon, made up of three tribes, the Walla Walla, the Cayuse and the Umatilla. At one time, prior to treaty, they utilized country that is now part of the southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon and far beyond that area. The tribe has been honored by the Harvard program, high honors for a project called the Umatilla Basin Project. It's a project that restored stream flows to the river that flows through the heart of the reservation after 70-plus years of having no stream flows for six months out of the year and then putting salmon back in those waters, three different stocks of salmon. The river has gone from dry for six months out of the year for 70-plus years and it has gone from zero salmon for 70-plus years to 30,000 adult salmon returning each year and to a flowing river 12 months out of the year. It was conceived of, negotiated, and implemented by the Confederated Tribes.

The tribe was awarded also high honors for a salmon foundation funding program that's operated by a tribal consortium that includes the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla, also includes the Yakima, the Nez Pierce and the Warm Springs tribe and that's the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission out of Portland. And the tribe received honors recognition for its cultural resources protection program, a program that has just been a phenomenal success on the reservation as far as being a demonstration for Indian people at home and for tribes across the country, and in some cases across the world, for how to protect your cultural artifacts, your sacred places, by doing it yourself, by taking over the expertise, the responsibility and the obligation and taking it away from folks that have been trying to do it for a century and a half.

I think there are several foundational characteristics in addition recognizing and rewarding successful programs that the Umatilla tribes use day in and day out to make sure that successes continue and that they actually grow into new successes. One of those is vision and leadership. And I am fortunate enough today to be here at Harvard with the chairman of the Confederated Tribes, the chairman of the board of trustees, chairman Antone Minthorn. Antone, would you stand up please? [Applause] Chairman Minthorn has been on the board of trustees for 20 years and when you talk about vision and leadership in our country, in our part of the world, Chairman [Antone] Minthorn is the vision and the leadership that has guided the Umatilla Basin Project, the salmon and water restoration project, from start to now. It's his vision, it's his leadership that makes sure that that program is well understood and honored by both tribal people and the off-reservation, non-Indian people. And one of the things you get the opportunity to do when you come back to a program like this is learn from other people. And yesterday during Chairman [Anthony] Pico's moving presentation, Antone looked at me and he elbowed me in the side and he said, 'Now that chairman has a good speech writer.' [Laughter] So I'm going to take that home and I will learn from that.

Vision and leadership -- it is the foundation to make sure that you continue on with your successes and that you honor them as you should. Funding, obviously you've got to have funding and it's got to be stable funding to keep the program going and to allow it to grow and bud off into new successes. I think it's equally important, though, to recognize -- and this tribe recognizes it very well -- that because you may need a quarter of a million dollars to get the project going and implemented, you don't need that much money and you potentially don't need the same staff to keep it going. In fact, it's going to change. Funding levels need to change with that transition and often supervision of the project needs to change, too. Umatilla Basin Project is a good example. Once that was negotiated, congressional legislation passed, funded, implemented, meaning it was constructed and operational, the tribe then transferred it out of the program that I work and into a different program that has the expertise to operate and maintain a project like that. That leaves us available to do different work, to do new work.

Commitment. One of the things that you won't see successful programs without is commitment. If you think about what you've heard today and yesterday from the tribal leaders -- young and a little bit older than that -- one of the things you've heard is that none of these projects were one-year projects. They weren't five-year projects. They were decades-long projects. Commitment from tribal leadership and from the tribal membership is absolutely critical. New successes have to have that same level of commitment. And I think that new successes become easier once you have successes to build on and that level of commitment, that institutional investment that runs from tribal policy down to tribal membership, is easier to come by once you break that barrier of major successes.

One of the things the tribe has been really good at doing is moving off of successes, leaving them where they should be to be implemented, taken care of, nurtured, funded, but then moving the people, the policy priorities, on to new projects and programs to create new successes. In the Umatilla Basin Project, once that project was operational, the tribe immediately stepped over the mountains to the next river which had the same problem, an off-reservation river but a river that the tribe maintains treaty-reserved rights to fish in. Same problems, agricultural diversions dried up the river, it fuels the economy of that river basin, the Walla Walla river basin in Oregon and Washington, and the tribe simply stepped over and used the same model that worked in the Umatilla Basin. And that's not a technical-fix model, that's a 'how do you work with people?' model. It's a sit down with people and negotiate a resolution and then figure out together how to make it happen, how to get the millions, and in this case probably more like $150 or 200 million to make it happen. And the tribe itself coughed up $2.5 million of its own money. First went back to Congress to get a change in the legislation so that they could do that, $2.5 million over the course of the last three years to contribute to the federal agency that's planning and designing the project. So applying successful models: you get one, you move it out, and you do it again. And you continue doing it and you learn every time you do it how to do it better. The Umatilla tribes have just done great work at using that model concept and moving it out.

And lastly, and this may well be the most important component that I know we've learned back home on the Umatilla Indian reservation, and that is you have to have an intimate connection to the Indian people. That's another thing you think about with the projects, the people that you've listened to today, that defines every project I heard was an absolutely intimate connection to Indian people from start to finish. Without that connection to Indian people you will drift and your project won't have that foundation back on the reservation that will allow all the other things to happen, continued funding, continuity of funding, continuity of it being a priority at the political level within tribal governments and that communication connection to tribal people is just absolutely foundational.

And finally, in closing, I want to say that Chairman Minthorn came out here for whatever reason, his administrative staff at home must have told him that he was going to speak so he has a wonderful speech prepared, he's wanting to give it so give him a call back home and I'm sure that he will give you his speech over the telephone [Laughter]. We can do a conference call; it's a wonderful speech. Not as good as what we heard yesterday, but it ranks right up there.

I want to say thank you and I want to say that this two days has been very, very instructive for myself. We have learned things that we'll take back to the reservation and we're very eager to continue to work with you all and to be in the presence of, as was said by the speaker before me, the elite of tribal leadership and tribal people. Thank you very much."

Chickasaw Fishery Saves Endangered Species While Sustaining Fishermen and Tourism

Author
Producer
Indian Country Today
Year

Nothing elevates the hope and heart rate of an angler more than hearing that first predawn “ZWIIINNGGG” of a casting reel as fishing line slices through the early morning air and the lure plops into the water.

Whether it’s the first or last day of the season, fishermen hope that is a dinner bell ringing in the ears of their desired quarry.

The outdoor enthusiasts who pursue a multitude of game fish seeking refuge in coves, holes and brush in Oklahoma’s lakes and streams make a sound too: The cash register’s “cha-CHING” can be heard with predictable regularity.

With more than 700,000 anglers using the many public lakes, ponds and streams within Oklahoma each year, work is underway to guarantee the state’s natural fish resources will exist for generations to come. These efforts incorporate fish hatcheries located throughout the state, including the Tishomingo National Fish Hatchery...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Cole, KC. "Chickasaw Fishery Saves Endangered Species While Sustaining Fishermen and Tourism." Indian Country Today. February 16, 2014. Article. (https://ictnews.org/archive/chickasaw-fishery-saves-endangered-species-while-sustaining-fishermen-and-tourism, accessed March 22, 2023)

Investing in Fish, Preserving Red Cliff Culture

Author
Producer
Indian Country Today
Year

Small fingerlings roiled the water in the translucent plastic tubs placed before ready volunteers in the Red Cliff tribal fish hatchery at Wisconsin’s northern edge. The agitated three- to six-inch coaster brook trout–known as fry–made the water appear to be boiling. A mild anesthetic was added and soon the young trout were calmed and primed to undergo the fish version of cattle branding–a clipping of their fins that will identify them as the Class of 2012. In mid-May, some 24,000 of these trout graduated from hatchery rearing tanks and were released into the vast Lake Superior as part of a years-long effort by the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa to reinstate a once-significant strand in the Great Lake’s food web. The band’s hatchery is one of only two that are regionally rearing coaster brook trout; it is the only one using brood fish native to the watershed...

Resource Type
Citation

LeMay, Konnie. "Investing in Fish, Preserving Red Cliff Culture." Indian Country Today. June 20, 2013. Article. (https://ictnews.org/archive/investing-in-fish-preserving-red-cliff-culture, accessed July 25, 2023)

Saving the Ocean: River of Kings, Part 1

Producer
The Chedd-Angier Production Company, Inc.
Year

An unusual coalition of tribal leaders, private partners and government agencies is working to restore Washington's Nisqually River from its source in the glaciers of Mount Rainier to the estuary that empties into Puget Sound. Led by the Nisqually tribe, the restoration aims to fill the river once again with abundant, magnificent wild salmon. New documentaries in the Saving the Ocean series by filmmakers Chedd-Angier and hosted by renowned scientist Carl Safina track the progress of the Nisqually and their top salmon advocate, Billy Frank Jr.

For millennia, the Nisqually Indians relied on Chinook salmon caught in the Nisqually River. Now the river's wild Chinook are extinct and the tribe runs a hatchery to keep their fishery going. But an unusual coalition of tribal leaders, private partners and government agencies is working to restore the river from top to bottom, from its source in the glaciers of Mount Rainier to the estuary that empties into Puget Sound. Led by the Nisqually tribe, the restoration aims to fill the river once again with abundant, magnificent wild salmon.

In the restoration, urban rain gardens filter runoff and augment river flow, new logjams deepen and cool its waters, and farms returned to marshland provide new places for young salmon to shelter and grow. In a 2-part special, Carl Safina meets the tribal leaders who inspired this grand vision of restoration, which has its roots in the native fishing rights campaigns of the 1960s; and our cameras discover some of the first wild Chinook salmon, descended miraculously from hatchery stock, now beginning to re-populate the Nisqually's pristine spawning grounds.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

"River of Kings, Part 1." Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. The Chedd-Angier Production Company. Boston, Massachusetts. Premiered on PBS November 8, 2012. (http://chedd-angier.com/savingtheocean/Season1/Episode5.html, accessed November 6, 2023)

Saving the Ocean: River of Kings, Part 2

Producer
The Chedd-Angier Production Company, Inc.
Year

An unusual coalition of tribal leaders, private partners and government agencies is working to restore Washington's Nisqually River from its source in the glaciers of Mount Rainier to the estuary that empties into Puget Sound. Led by the Nisqually tribe, the restoration aims to fill the river once again with abundant, magnificent wild salmon. New documentaries in the Saving the Ocean series by filmmakers Chedd-Angier and hosted by renowned scientist Carl Safina track the progress of the Nisqually and their top salmon advocate, Billy Frank Jr.

For millennia, the Nisqually Indians relied on Chinook salmon caught in the Nisqually River. Now the river's wild Chinook are extinct and the tribe runs a hatchery to keep their fishery going. But an unusual coalition of tribal leaders, private partners and government agencies is working to restore the river from top to bottom, from its source in the glaciers of Mount Rainier to the estuary that empties into Puget Sound. Led by the Nisqually tribe, the restoration aims to fill the river once again with abundant, magnificent wild salmon.

In the restoration, urban rain gardens filter runoff and augment river flow, new logjams deepen and cool its waters, and farms returned to marshland provide new places for young salmon to shelter and grow. In a 2-part special, Carl Safina meets the tribal leaders who inspired this grand vision of restoration, which has its roots in the native fishing rights campaigns of the 1960s; and our cameras discover some of the first wild Chinook salmon, descended miraculously from hatchery stock, now beginning to re-populate the Nisqually's pristine spawning grounds.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

"River of Kings, Part 2." Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. The Chedd-Angier Production Company. Boston, Massachusetts. Premiered on PBS November 15, 2012. (http://chedd-angier.com/savingtheocean/Season1/Episode6.html, accessed November 6, 2023) 

The Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe

Producer
Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe
Year

For ten thousand years, a Nation of people lived and prospered on the lands now known as the Olympic Peninsula in the State of Washington. These strong people of the S'Klallam Tribes had a system of governance, engaged in commerce, managed natural and human resources, and exercised power over their homelands. The S'Klallams created a rich culture of art, song, spirituality, traditional knowledge and social structure. The S'Klallam culture promoted leadership, self-sufficiency, self reliance, and a code of conduct within their community that served as a basis for strength, pride and survival. This was a Nation, a government and a community...independent and interdependent. It still is. In this video, longtime tribal chairman W. Ron Allen provides an overview of the history of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe and how it has become the strong Native nation it is today.

Native Nations
Citation

Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe. "The Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe." Sequim, Washington. 2010. Video Presentation. (http://www.jamestowntribe.org/facts/facts_video1/facts_video.htm, accessed November 13, 2012).

Pacific Northwest Salmon Habitat: The Culvert Cases and the Power of Treaties

Author
Year

American Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest signed treaties with the federal government in the 1850’s that preserved their right to fish in their “usual and accustomed” fishing grounds. The tribes have had to continually fight to have this right recognized. U.S. v. Washington, 1974, the Boldt decision, upheld this fishing right and ruled that the tribes were entitled to 50% of the harvestable portion of salmon returning to their usual and accustomed grounds. Though this historic court decision enabled the Indians to legally fish, the decline of the salmon has meant that the importance of this decision has been eroded. For the last three decades the tribes have worked to preserve salmon runs by protecting and restoring fish habitat. The tribes are in a unique position to advance habitat restoration on a landscape scale. Restoring fish passage in streams throughout the state is an example of how the power of the treaties can facilitate salmon recovery significantly. In 2001, they went into federal district court with a specific habitat lawsuit: the culvert case. The decision in this case has been called the most significant victory for tribal treaty fishing rights since the Boldt decision...

Citation

Brown, Jovana and Brian Footen. "Pacific Northwest Salmon Habitat: The Culvert Cases and the Power of Treaties." Enduring Legacies Native Cases Initiative, The Evergreen State College. Olympia, Washington. 2010. Teaching Case Study. (http://nativecases.evergreen.edu/docs/Brown%20Footen%20Culvert%20case%20..., accessed February 13, 2013)