Coast Salish-USGS partnership honored with Partners in Conservation Award

The Coast Salish – U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Tribal Journey Water Quality Project was recognized with the Department of the Interior’s Partners in Conservation Award.

The award recognizes the strength of collaborative activities such as the USGS partnership with the Coast Salish Western Washington Tribes and British Columbia First Nations. This cooperative effort combined traditional Tribal ecological knowledge and USGS science during the 2008 Tribal Canoe Journey to research resources experiencing decline in the Salish Sea, which includes Puget Sound, Georgia Straits, and Straits of Juan De Fuca.

“The Salish Sea Ecosystem sustains our indigenous life way as People of the Salmon and Shoreline,” said Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby. “We say in our Lands, when the Tide is out, the Table is set. Our way of life depends upon a healthy ecosystem that stretches from the mountains to the tidelands. Through the partnerships and project, we have a stronger science and policy capacity to protect the human health of our people, our culture, and aboriginal and treaty rights of our Nations.”

Read the USGS press release.