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Contact: Kurt Russo
Lummi Treaty Protection Task Force
Tel: (360) 384-2358
Fax: (360) 384-4737
Puget Sound, WA
Scope: Rural
Project type: Salmon conservation and restoration
The Lummi Tribe of Native Americans has resided in northwest Washington
State at the northern end of Puget Sound for 12,000 years. Throughout their
existence, the Lummi people have relied on fishing as the mainstay of their
culture and their survival. They designed the commonly used fishing methods
of the reef net, the weir, and the purse seine, and lived in villages along
the mainland and throughout the San Juan islands. Ceremonies and legends
related to salmon and salmon fishing, with names such as The First
Salmon Ceremony and The Tale of the Salmon Woman have
been passed down through generations and provide evidence of the sacred
relationship between the Lummi history and culture and the salmon.
Today, the Lummi people consist of over 3,500 enrolled tribal members and
primarily live on or around a 20,000 acre reservation. Fishing and gathering
of shellfish is the primary means of subsistence for most of the Lummi.
Their livelihood and culture is based on fishing, and has been so since
their existence as a tribe for the past 12,000 years.
This critical economic and cultural resource, however, is presently severely
threatened with extinction. During the past ten years the salmon stocks
have drastically declined. Once so thick that you could "walk on their
backs" as legends say, two of the four species of salmon are now being
considered for the national Endangered Species list.
This decline is attributed to accelerated logging in the headwater areas
of the Nooksack Basin, the erection of small hydroelectric dams on salmon
streams, ground and water pollution from industry and agriculture, the decline
of wetland areas, and the rapid and irresponsible development of the lowland
areas. As a result of such actions, the North Fork of the Nooksack River
has dropped over eight feet in the past ten years, over 60% of the salmon
streams have been destroyed due to logging practices, and the critical portions
of the South Fork of the Nooksack River average over 70 degrees F. which
is a lethal temperature for salmon. A more recent threat to the species
is the growing "private property rights" movement that decries
the regulations on private lands that were passed to protect the salmon
streams.
The Lummi people have been dramatically confronted by this salmon decline,
and have formed a united front that plays an extremely important role in
maintaining the fish stocks in the region and responsibly managing and using
the threatened salmon resource. The Lummi carry this out by maintaining
the largest Native American fishing fleet in the Pacific Northwest, which
boasts of the most extensive fisheries protection program in the region.
This program enlists the services of over 150 highly qualified tribal fisheries
technicians and specialists, many of whom were trained at the Lummi School
of Aquaculture or, more recently, the Lummi Community College. The Lummi
Tribe's Fisheries Department has an annual budget of over $3,000,000 and
operates one of the most successful and productive salmon hatcheries in
the United States, releasing over 17,000,000 salmon fingerlings each year.
The overall goal of the fisheries program is to provide for the sustainable
management of the fisheries stocks, including the protection of salmon spawning
habitat in locations forty to sixty miles from the Lummi reservation. Fisheries
staff take careful action to fulfill their mission by monitoring of the
health of these streams, conducting salmon counts in many of the small river
tributaries near the Nooksack Basin, and monitoring the return and harvest
of the salmon.
As the salmon population continues to be threatened, the Lummi are currently
working by increasing the productivity of their hatchery operation, actively
pursuing the establishment of new and stricter laws to protect salmon habitat,
and engaging in an aggressive public education campaign to better inform
the public of the importance of the salmon in creating sustainable livelihoods
for many of the Washington state citizens. The Lummi are also represented
on the International Salmon Commission that seeks to restrain the activities
of the off-shore drift net fishery.
The actions of the Lummi tribe provide a model for the involvement of indigenous
peoples in the planning and management of our existing natural resources.
By actively taking part in both local and international efforts, the Lummi
are forcing the current industrialized society to listen to and account
for traditional values and management methods with regards to natural resources.
Sound policy changes are needed that discount present actions according
to their impact on future generations, and often indigenous peoples are
the true experts on such policy due to their understanding of generational
time. To the Lummi, overfishing is not an option because it won't last into
the future and if fishing is gone, their identity and culture will disappear.
According to the Lummi, the Great Salmon Woman has taught them that if they
take only the amount of salmon needed and protect the birthing areas of
the salmon (who are hatched, go to sea for four years, and then return to
their birth spot to spawn and die), the salmon will continue to exist and
thrive. With this understanding, the Lummi people continue to work toward
sustainable management of our current resources, and to educate the people
of today in the management methods they have been using for thousands of
years.
Special thanks to Kurt Russo and the information gathered from his
paper "Swimming Upstream: A Way of Life on the River."
Case Study Source: Sustainability
in Action: Profiles of Community Initiatives Across the United States--
American Forum for Global Education. 1995
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