Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The inaugural First Stewards symposium, to be held July 17-20 in Washington, D.C. is a national event that examines the impact of climate change on indigenous coastal cultures and explores solutions based on millennia of traditional ecological knowledge.

Hundreds of native leaders, witnesses and climate scientists will join policy-makers and non-government organizations for groundbreaking dialogue in what is planned to be an annual meeting at the …

An empty plastic kerosene can with Japanese writing on it washed onto Point Grenville in March, possibly some of the first debris to reach the Olympic Coast following Japan’s catastrophic tsunami in 2011.

Tribal, local, state and federal agencies are preparing for the possibility that tons more debris may wash ashore. However, little wreckage has reached Hawaii, so tribal scientists are hopeful that not much will …

Northwest Public Radio reported on a study by the non-profit research organization Climate Central and the University of Arizona that predicts rising seas due to climate change will cover coastal communities in Washington and Oregon.

The Quileute Tribe concluded a decades-long effort to gain additional land to move the tribal school, tribal council buildings and individual tribal members homes out of the tsunami zone with signing of legislation by President Obama that grants the tribe nearly 800 acres of Olympic National Park land. The Indian Country Today Media Network story chronicles the tribe’s effort.

The Seattle Times has an article discussing the developing science and research into the effects of ocean acidification in Puget Sound.

For the Quinault Indian Nation (QIN), it is a grim truth that to protect the marine resources that sustain them, they must meticulously inventory those resources.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska graphically demonstrated the need to quantify baseline populations of marine and intertidal life. To accomplish the task, QIN and other tribal communities are using a common data-gathering method established by the Multi-Agency Rocky …

An important winter refuge for salmon and trout has been reconnected to Thirty Cent Creek, a tributary of the Sooes River on the Makah Tribe’s reservation.

“This project has been identified for some time and we were finally able to get the pieces to line up to make it happen,” said Ray Colby, water quality specialist for the Makah Tribe. Previously located on private commercial timberlands, …

It’s a mixed bag of razor clam populations on beaches from Copalis to Kalaloch, an annual survey by the Quinault Indian Nation (QIN) and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife shows. While some beaches had fewer clams available for harvest, others had more.

The co-managers use seawater to pump razor clams to the surface inside a 3-foot-wide mesh tube sunk vertically into the beach sand, enabling …

Bull elk on the north Olympic Peninsula are surviving today at roughly the same rate as they did in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to early results of a two-year study by the Makah Tribe.

The tribe is halfway through the second year of a bull and calf elk survival study to update survival rate information gathered in the 1980s. “We want to be …

Elwha Dam removal is visible from a public viewing area off Highway 112 west of Port Angeles. Work also continues to remove the Glines Canyon Dam.