Search Results (3)

This article reviews the individual spend plans of U.S. states granted a funding allocation under Sec. 12005 of the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to identify consistency with legislative mandates to support Tribal commercial, subsistence, cultural, or ceremonial fisheries negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing critical discourse analysis, this study identifies state discursive practices in supporting Tribal sovereignty in fisheries management for the advancement of Indigenous Ocean justice. State spending plans (n = 22) publicly available and submitted to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration before July 2021 were reviewed. Few of the state spend plans listed impacts to Tribal fisheries due to the pandemic. Only two state plans included Tribal consultation and direct economic relief for commercial, subsistence, cultural, and/or ceremonial losses faced by neighboring Tribes and Tribal citizens. Overall, the protections within the CARES Act for Tribal fisheries were not integrated into state spend plans. The article identifies best practices for state fisheries relief policy content that is affirming of Tribal fishing rights and uses them to help address the ongoing pandemic crisis facing Tribal fisheries. These findings have relevance for future emergency relief programs that are inclusive of Tribal Nations. Honoring Tribal sovereignty and the federal trust responsibility must be the cornerstone of shared sustainable fisheries. Full article

In Mediterranean-climate regions of California and southern Oregon, juvenile salmon depend on groundwater aquifers to sustain their tributary habitats through the dry summers. Along California’s North Coast streams, private property regimes on land have created commons tragedies in groundwater and salmon fisheries, both classic examples of commons that are often governed collectively and sustainably by their users. Understanding the linkages between salmon and groundwater is one major focus of salmon recovery and climate change adaptation planning in central California and increasingly throughout the Pacific Northwest. In this paper, I use extended field interviews and participant-observation in field ecology campaigns and regulatory forums to explore how, in one water-scarce, salmon-bearing watershed on California’s central coast, collaborators are synthesizing agency and landowner data on groundwater and salmon management. I focus on three projects undertaken by citizen scientists in collaboration with me and Gold Ridge Resource Conservation District staff: salmonid censuses, mapping of wet and dry stream reaches and well monitoring. I find that collaborative research initiated by local residents and agency personnel has, in some cases, created a new sense of ecological possibility in the region. I also consider some limitations of this collaborations, namely the lack of engagement with indigenous Pomo and Miwok tribal members, with the Confederated Tribes of Graton Rancheria and with farmworkers and other marginalized residents, and suggest strategies for deepening environmental justice commitments in future collaborative work. Full article

We determined whole-fish Hg concentrations of 26 female and 34 male adult lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) from northern Lake Huron captured during November 2010. Subsampling from these 60 fish, Hg concentration was also determined in both somatic tissue and ovaries (n = 5), while methylmercury (MeHg) concentration was determined in whole fish (n = 18). Bioenergetics modeling was used to assess the growth dilution effect on the difference in Hg concentrations between the sexes. Mean whole-fish Hg concentration in females (59.9 ng/g) was not significantly different from mean whole-fish Hg concentration in males (54.4 ng/g). MeHg accounted for 91% of the mercury found in the lake whitefish. Bioenergetics modeling results indicated that the growth dilution effect did not contribute to the difference in Hg concentrations between the sexes. We estimated that females increased in Hg concentration by 17.9%, on average, immediately after spawning due to release of eggs. Using polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) data for the same 60 lake whitefish from a previous study, we detected a significant interaction between sex and contaminant type (Hg or PCBs), which was attributable to males being significantly higher in PCB concentration than females. Males may be eliminating Hg at a faster rate than females. Full article