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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week Tom Wheeler, executive director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center, and joining me is my friend and colleague, director of Humboldt Baykeeper, Jen Kalt. How you doing?

JEN KALT:

Great, it's been a while. Good to see you.

WHEELER:

Good to see you. All right. So today we are talking about the Tribal Marine Stewards Network, an alliance of tribal nations working collaboratively to steward protect and restore the ocean and coastal resources. So, Jen, it seems that you know at least some of our guests. So do you want to begin the introductions?

KALT:

Well, I thought I would have Megan and Jaytuk introduce themselves.

WHEELER:

So we have on the show Megan Rocha, the executive director of the Resighini Rancheria. Hey Megan

MEGAN ROCHA:

Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

WHEELER:

And we have Jaytuk Steinruck:, tribal councilmember at the Tolowa Dee-Ni' Nation and a member of the Tribal Marine Stewards Network Leadership council. Hey Jaytuk.

JAYTUK STEINRUCK:

Hello, thanks for having me also.

WHEELER:

Well, so do you want to both introduce yourselves and who you work for and your role within the Tribal Marine Stewards Network and a little bit about why you care so deeply about protecting our marine resources? So, Megan, I'll I'll shoot this to you first.

ROCHA:

Okay, yeah, so like you said, my name is Megan Rocha, I'm the executive director for the Resighini Rancheria, and they are small tribe of Yurok people. So the reservation is located on the south side of the Klamath River, but has a much larger ancestral territory that's shared with other federally recognized tribes of Yurok people. I also sit on the leadership council for the Tribal Marin Stewards Network and had the honor to help develop this network over many years of work. I was born and raised in Humboldt County and feel very connected to the ocean and these places, and I've worked with North Coast tribes for almost 20 years in various capacities and in the specific marine stewardship space almost 15 years. So my care very deeply about the store personally and professionally as well.

WHEELER:

And tell us a bit about yourself.

STEINRUCK:

So hello, my name is Jaytuk Steinruck and right now is the capacity that I sit on is through on the leadership council. In 2020 I was elected to my tribal council. So prior to that I was within our natural resources department with the nation and to give you guys in the context of where we're located, our tribal offices located in Smith River, California, just about eight miles from the Oregon border at our ancestral or aboriginal territory stretches from the south and just north of Klamath. The Wilson Creek to the Smith river and Oregon all along the coast. Yeah, like I said, I started within the natural resources department as staff and started developing this idea really from a dream or you know, some learning exchanges that we did with some folks up in the First nations in Canada, then learned from them about the land and sea rangers in Australia and just started understanding what they were doing about being the eyes and ears and their territories and education and outreach. They're protecting their natural and cultural resources and it was something that we wanted to do here and that's where we're at. I could go on and on if you want. What do you guys exactly want to hear?

KALT:

First? I want to say congratulations on this Ocean Protection Council grant that the network was awarded. Was it last October now? It's quite a sizable grant. So it's really exciting. And reading about the network, which spans five tribes across a lot of coastline in California. So why don't you talk a little bit about the five tribes that are involved or the three tribes besides your two tribes ... talk a little bit about the other tribes and where, where they're located, where their territory is.

ROCHA:

Yeah. So I can share about that. So as Jaytuk mentioned, our most most northern tribe is Tolowa Dee nation And he described their territory And then Reseghini Rancheria covers the Yurok ancestral territory. And then we have the Kashia band of Pomo Indians which are located in Sonoma County, and they have a pretty large coastal reserve land that they just reacquired several years ago. And so they've been really interested in trying to figure out ways to build their own capacity to, to manage that area as well as their obviously their larger ancestral territory. And then we have the Amah tribal band, which is down sort of in the Santa Cruz -- a little bit south of there -- area, and they are an unfettered recognized tribe. So they're unique within the network and then the tribe that we just brought on. So after sort of two years of a pilot with the four founding tribes. Now with the second round of OPC funding, we've been able to bring on 1/5 tribe and that's the Santa Ynez band of Chumash Indians. So they sort of helped represent the southern part of the state.

KALT:

So Santa Ynez, that's in the Santa Barbara area. Yeah. Okay. So I'm curious what inspired this network of so many different tribes across such a large region. I mean the coastline is a lot of very similar habitats and species, but there's also a lot of differences too. So how did, how did you decide to work together on this network?

ROCHA:

Yeah. So I can tell you a little bit about sort of the history of where this all started before I kind of go into how these, these specific tribes came together. That is okay, so a lot of this sort of advocacy work really stemmed out of the California Marie like protection act process that occurred many years ago now. And as is, you know, well known in that process, The state didn't recognize the unseated rights of California tribes and the continued use of the ocean and desire to continue to steward the ocean. And so there was a lot of advocacy, particularly on the North Coast to bring tribes together to make the state very aware of those facts. And so really sort of out of that became this sort of awareness and need of how do we build marine program capacity so tribes can really be more engaged in the management and governments of these spaces. And so I was really fortunate enough to get to work with any nation after the M. P. A. Network design process, which during that process I was working for a different tribe and help them build their marine program capacity. A lot of the concerns. You know, we built it around the concerns of their community and, and J tech can talk more about that. But that was many years of of work. And in that process, Holiday Nation was able to start some rocky intertidal and sandy beach monitoring and then we were also able to lead an indigenous traditional knowledge project with other tribes in the North Coast. And that was the first time the state had really recognized this specific type of knowledge as being helpful to better understand what's happening in the ocean and how two adaptive lee manage it from that work. We really started thinking about, well, how do we do more long term monitoring, build capacities elsewhere. And then I was fortunate enough to begin working at Resighini Rancheria and start doing some of that work there. So through sort of those many years of work we've developed a lot of relationships throughout the state. And so when we were sort of envisioning this Kashia band of Pomo Indians just seemed like a really ideal candidate because they had just gotten back that land obviously their their deep connection to the ocean. And so that's how sort of they were brought on was just previous relationships. And then bringing on the other two tribes was really sort of through some state relationship building and Daniel says wasn't quite ready when we first launched the pilot but now they are ready to become engaged.

KALT:

So that's really cool. You know when the Marine Life Protection Act was first proposed and and came to the North Coast it seemed like it was very controversial. It seemed like it had a lot of potential to really fracture a lot of different relationships that people have been working on for years. And and sometimes out of those types of situations can come surprising things like the recognition of tribal rights in terms of coastal resources but also all the relationships to that's can be really bonding thing to go through all that with people. So jay, can you tell us a little bit about the rocky intertidal monitoring work that you're doing up there in the nation nations territory.

STEINRUCK:

Sure. I guess I gotta give you a little bit of background on how I came to be in the position I was I was in and now in so at the at the nation we started then it was called the fish and game committee. And then now it's called the natural resources and harvesting. And there was a question that was brought to that committee and I sat on that up until I got elected to council as the chair. I am now the travel liaison for that. But there was a question that was asked, What species in the marine environment are we worried about? Are we concerned about? And after discussion of those meetings that came out that our people were um concerned about our surf smell or day fish or we call it lunch. I know we're being on the radio but that's the fish that is behind me on my screen. So I got there was a grand that was written through the U. S. Fish and wildlife one year grand. Or like a two year grand. I know it's been a while now. I can't remember at all. But I was asked To apply for the knowledge that I had learned through my lifetime for camping on the beach for these fish. We were seeing major declines in our fish year after year for those people that don't know what I'm talking about. They come to shore between about the months of May May two. They started tailing off about August and they come to shore to spawn. So this is a traditional food source for our people. Not only my tribe but the other tribes are definitely, you know, resonating in the Iraqi people and the pomo people of shy of all those folks. This was an activity that was done up and down the North Coast every summer for winter food storage today. My my family and another family are the only two that are still traditionally doing this every summer to drive these fish on the beach. So that's how that came to be. And we started doing some habitat assessments, you know, seeing if the gravel was there that they spawn in. Not a lot of research had been done on these fish in in California, some studies done up in the state of Washington. So my ex coworker and I are marine biologists rosa loci started looking at what they were doing and we kind of mimicked some of that monitoring and we found out that the habitat is there, what other concerns or whatever they're, you know, factors are playing into these. So that's how that came to be. And then we just built on top of that once we did a couple year two of the monitoring, then it started rolling out for all this M. P. A baseline monitoring. You know, the baseline studies that were done and we wanted to be involved in that part of that. We started doing both Sandy beach proposal and rocky and her title. That was a good time. I learned a lot about all different sorts of stuff on the science side of things. But we started out with doing working with several different grad students and folks from humble state and their, you know, marine program there And we were doing the muscle plots got involved in the chronic wasting disease for the sea stars wandering them and seeing counting the numbers of them. And if they were had lesions or they were sick or they're they pull an arm off because that was going through about the same time. And then we expanded on even more of that after that funding kind of ran out. We supported that. And then we wrote more grants. We have some wonderful people that wrote grants to keep me employed and just kept building on top of that. And we expanded, you know, of course in the N. P. A. It's kind of interesting thing because when the state put the mps and they put it in our front yard, I say our front yard because it's right right off our tribal lands here in

WHEELER:

just want to quickly interject M. P. A. We keep using it marine protected area. And the

STEINRUCK:

specific one that I'm speaking of is pyramid point or and it stretches for, I'm just, you know north of the mouth of smith river all the way to the Oregon border. So this is where we traditionally my our family, our people will go and fish for these fish. So it was kind of an interesting, I started learning about this marine protected area and there's no take and all this kind of stuff. I was like, well wait a minute, I'm not going to stop doing what I do because the state came in and said that I can't. And the ironic thing, I had to bring it up and ironic thing about this when they put the regulations in the only species that they allowed to be taken from this M. P. A. Was the surf smell. So we're in the process of getting that that regulation changed hopefully through this review that we have going on to the state after 10 years. That's where we're at with that. So that gives you a little bit of background on what, what we do And then we also learned, so we're doing sea stars, we were doing muscle plots to see if they were healthy and then we got involved with the tides project and that was imaging three D imaging of the rocky intertidal and what that does is really takes a nice makes a three D model of it and you can actually go back and count all the critters and see the change, not in just a window opportunity of when the tide is in or out. Really an excellent piece of technology that can help everybody learn about what is actually in our rocky intertidal. I mean it's so nice. It's down to like the little little critters on the

ROCHA:

rock, the Econews report. Yeah, I was just going to say something about that. I mean, I think so tides is a partnership with scripts institute and I think it's like a perfect example of empowering indigenous communities to collect data and analyze the data based on the species that that tribe cares about. But also provide this amazing data set that potentially could be used for understanding sea level rise, species abundance, how species are changing related to changing seas. So it's very exciting. This is the type of thing that we are trying to get folks to realize that there's like power in investing in these communities. Right? And like Tiktok said like the M. L. P. A. I think as an example the marine Life protection Act and the designation of marine protected areas is an example of the failure of the state not involving tribes and what ended up resulting in that is, you had less protections on the North Coast because tribes ended up avid gating against marine protected areas instead of four. And you all also had instances where some of the most impacted species such as serve spell ended up not being protected at the end because they really weren't listening to the communities that are the front line users and know what's going on. And also sort of the state's way of regulating as recreational commercial species, right? And oftentimes that doesn't include species that are culturally important. So it's sort of these consistent themes that we're seeing, that really sort of allow us to advocate for a different way of doing things. You know, the state seems to be on board with some of the policies that has come out of the Newsom administration, the relationship that we've been able to develop with the resources agency and also the Ocean Protection Council and starting to try to create like a new paradigm where it's really tribes working collaboratively with the state and by versa with the ultimate goal of co managing and co governing these areas. So there's true decision making happening and I think that's what's gonna get you to a healthier ocean, right? Is these types of relationships and really valuing the knowledge that folks like Jaytuk and others have and not sort of looking down on that, which is sort of a typical way that academia works. The state works traditionally and we really need to sort of flip that and realize that, you know, there's a lot that can be learned and we just need to create a space to allow people, indigenous people to be who they are and sort of sit back and listen and

KALT:

learn well. And also the timescale that indigenous people have have as a reference is so vastly longer than academic scientists. I mean there's a lot of different examples of species like the beaver that you know if you asked the Department of Fish and Wildlife five years ago they would say beaver are not native to California because they had already been extirpated by 1940 or so when the scientists started studying them or sea otters which you know we're already so hammered from the fur trade of a couple 100 years ago that their populations were low. The abalone populations were very high. I mean it just it can go on and on whether it's the Colorado River or whatever that non indian people come here and then they see this as static starting from about the year 1900. And this is all we need to know to manage things. And it's you know the lack of of the long term timescale and the humility to ask the people who have been living here with these species and living with them and managing them for so long. It's it's pretty wild when you think about it really.

ROCHA:

Yeah. And I think that's part of the case we made with the M. P. A. Baseline monitoring is like okay that's baseline to now. But if you're trying to like manage to what if you're considering that healthy right? And you're trying to make sure that things are sustained to that point in time. Like things aren't healthy and we know through traditional knowledge like how things used to be right and just changing and when species are coming and and so many things. Right? So absolutely. It's like the state thinks it has a long history, but it's really just a blip in time and their knowledge is very short.

KALT:

I noticed that there's about 12 different initiatives so far that are going on, but one of them has to do with toxic algae or harmful algal blooms as as people call them. And I wondered if that's one of the initiatives you could describe a little bit about your experience monitoring that and what you're, how you're doing that.

ROCHA:

Yeah. So all of the tribes now we're doing that monitoring. But J tech you might want to share since you were actively involved in that with the muscle and the phytoplankton sampling.

STEINRUCK:

Yeah, I can talk a little bit about that. So I know it's at least every month. If not every twice a month we would go out and get a sample of muscles and then and the reason why they would pick muscles first is because they're an indicator species. So they're the first to bring in all this plankton and then their levels will get high. And then that would let you know if other marine species are getting these these high levels of plankton. So we would get a sample and send those into the department public health and then they would do their studies to tell us what the levels were or are of those muscles at a certain time and then that it would give us an idea of other clams. Like razor clams would be high. The interesting thing about razor clams is they kind of hold on to this toxin for like a year. They don't really clean themselves out where like muscles will they'll elevate high but then clean themselves out and they'll be good. So that's really important to me because that's another traditional food that we eat is razor clams and other forms of clams like horse necks and butter clams and Martha Washington's and those kind of things. But within doing those you know I learned because I always just ask about the horse necks because we have a large population of those around our area and a lot of people harvest them but they don't seem to bio accumulate toxins. Like the razors. So that's good. What they did tell us though is if we see a prolonged level of high plankton levels in these in the muscles then we might be concerned about the other ones. So we haven't seen that it kinda does it up and down. And unfortunately right now I think razor clamming I don't think I know razor clamming is shut down because of the the domoic acid levels in them.

ROCHA:

Yeah so there is the collaboration with the California department public health that's been going on for a little while and then we're just now partnering with somebody else to actually learn to I. D. So that will be a little bit more like quicker response on some of the phytoplankton stuff. So excited by sort of expanding that opportunity. Oh I didn't

STEINRUCK:

add. We also do a plankton tow also you know so we would take water and then funnel it down and then send in a sample of what we collected in the in the water that day. So that would give the public health what kind of plankton is in the water and and you know give them ideas I guess where how or why? It might be high.

ROCHA:

Yeah and then if I could just mention because you mentioned the 12 initiatives I think some other key work that we're doing that isn't specific to like scientific monitoring is a lot of community engagement projects. So you know fundamentally we want all this work to be responsive to the communities that we work for and and live in. And so there's a lot of work around interviewing elders and gathers to make sure that we're prioritizing species that folks are concerned about and using that information to also integrate into stewardship practices and then we're also doing things with youth. A couple tribes have done camps. I know re zucchini we did one last summer and that was really great opportunity to get kids out there and do species identification and you know your language and and all kinds of things. So so those are a couple other things and and some of the work with the interviews also includes archival research and we've developed an indigenous traditional knowledge database that all the tribes will be using in a way to sort of store that information in a manner that is easily accessible by the tribe for a multitude of uses for resource protection.

KALT:

That is very cool. It's the tribal capacity building. I was going to ask you about that because you know, as with nonprofits were quite familiar with the cycle of the treadmill of having to get another grant, another grant or sometimes the grants only last a couple of years. And then that projects over and you have to think up some new project to get funded. You know, And so I noticed that there's a lot of discussion around capacity building within the tribe and also long term engagement with state and federal agencies rather than this one off kind of thing. So a lot of people are asking nowadays and, and rightly so. So how can we give more land back to tribes? But also can you talk a little bit about the importance of capacity building along with having land return projects?

ROCHA:

Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, just to kind of mentioned it earlier, just you're absolutely right. It's like the the grant world, right. Or we're constantly chasing that. And it's really hard to build like long term programs. You can build projects. Right. But how do you build long term programs? So that's been a big focus of the network one is, how do you collaborate? Right. To leverage each other's expertise, share knowledge across one another provide similar training opportunities, that kind of thing. And just create like a collaborative equitable space where we can all try to like help one another figure out these challenges that each tribe is dealing with. But the push really has been, how do we get long term programmatic funding? Right. And so that we're appreciative to OPC for the pilot funding and now the second round of funding, but we really are now pivoting to work with them to identify what are the funding challenges, right that the state has with tribes, how do we get more equitable sort of funding mechanisms rather than just grants and sort of the administrative burden that that brings. So those are the things, some of the things that we're looking into and then like J tech mentioned to like a lot of what we're doing is modeled off of successful, what people are successfully doing elsewhere. So british Columbia, they're doing amazing things with indigenous marine management sort of at the forefront. So we're, we've learned a lot from them in terms of some of their funding structures and long term endowment sort of approaches and then we've learned a lot from the land and sea rangers in Australia and really trying to bring our state partners with the government's partners in those places to sort of have that conversation about, how did you do this? Right? How can this be done successfully? And then we've been very fortunate to bring on some fairly sizable foundations to sort of start some of this work. And so really trying to cultivate those relationships as well so we can try to address this because that's really the biggest challenge, right, is long term sustainable funding without a question. So while we've developed the network and focused on monitoring and these tribal community engagement projects, the last few years has also heavily been spent on, how do we organize, How do we make decisions? How do we work together? How do we get funding? There's been a lot, a lot of pieces to this and I know that the states really eager for us to grow. But again, they sort of have to like be dedicated to this right long term. This can't just be a pet project of this particular administration. We have to do things to make sure it's institutionalized. So that's thinking about legislation for co management that really like institutionalizes that. Finding ways through the 30 by 30 effort to get land back and make sure tribes have capacity to actually manage it. I mean there's so many things sort of going on that they're all a piece of this puzzle and the Tribal Marine Stewards Network tries to bring tribes together at least in the marine space to like try to work together to figure some of this stuff out.

WHEELER:

You felt that half hour, Just so wonderfully. So good work when you have new projects, when you have more to report, just let us know and you're always welcome back on the show Megan. If folks would like to learn more about the Tribal Marin Stewards Network, where can they go?

ROCHA:

Yeah, We recently launched a website in October so they can just search for travel mean stewards network and check it out and yeah, learn more about the projects we're doing and the partners that are involved.

WHEELER:

All right, well thank you so much Megan and Jaytuk for joining the Econews Report and join us again next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the North Coast of California.