Short Wave - Why A Proposed Marine Sanctuary Could Make History

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

More than 5,000 square miles of central California coast could soon become the newest national marine sanctuary in the United States. It could also make history as one of the first federal sanctuaries to be initiated by a Native American tribe—the Chumash—and become part of a growing movement to give tribes a say over the lands and waters that were once theirs. NPR climate reporter Lauren Sommer dives into the details with host Regina G. Barber, touching on ocean science, heritage and what's in a name. Listen to Short Wave on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.Hear about some science news we haven't? Email us at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey everyone, Regina Barber here. And today with NPR's Lauren Summer, we're visiting a place that could make history. It might become the next National Marine Sanctuary in the U.S. Yes, the proposed sanctuary is off the coast of Central California. And it's known for beaches, rocky cliffs, kelp forests, whales, sea otters. All that California stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And definitely a place that people like to visit. But I met someone who sees something very different there. Almost all the places that people like to go to are our sacred sites. And we've been going there and praying and doing ceremony there for 20,000 years. That's Violet Sage Walker. She's the chairwoman of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council. They're one of the bands of Chumash that has lived there for thousands of years. And they're the ones pushing for this place to be protected as a Marine sanctuary.

So what does that mean to become a sanctuary? What kind of protections would that provide? Yeah, so a marine sanctuary is largely protected from development. So no oil rigs, no wind farms. Usually fishing is still allowed, though. And it would be monitored for threats to the ocean and gets oversight from NOAA, which is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But Violet and other Chumash tribal members are looking for more than just protection.

We are not wanting to be employees of NOAA. We are wanting to be separate and equal. And so that we have autonomous decision-making. They want to be co-managers of the sanctuary. Oh, right. You know, we did an episode about tribes and the U.S. government co-managing national parks. What does that collaboration look like in this case? Yeah, that's the big question they're still figuring out.

Because you're right. Under the Biden administration, there's been a real push to give tribes more of a say over the lands and waters that were taken from them. But it's a tough relationship to repair after just, you know, centuries of discriminations. discrimination and violence. So how it works out in practice is still being figured out. So today on the show, the case one tribe is making to protect thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean and how it's part of a larger movement to restore tribal management of public lands. You're listening to Shorewave, the science podcast from NPR. So Lauren, can you give us a brief overview of like the timeline for creating the sanctuary? Yeah. So in August, there was a big milestone, which is that Noah released its final. proposal for what the sanctuary would look like. Now it's getting public comments and the final decision will be next year probably. But Violet says this is part of a movement that she and her community

have been working on for decades, you know, to protect their sacred sites. Just given the history of how tribes have been treated in this country, I'm guessing that's been a struggle. Yeah, right. I mean, the Chumash were forcibly removed from their lands like many other tribes. Their numbers shrank because of that displacement and disease. And they've really been working to reclaim their cultural sites. Like in the 1970s, there was actually a liquefied natural gas terminal proposed just north of Santa Barbara at this place called Point Conception, which is kind of like this angular piece of land that just sticks out into the ocean. But too much people occupied the site to stop it, Violet Told me. We believe that, you know, when people exit this world, all people,

that they exit at Point Conception. So protecting that site is a spiritual connection for us. The same as any other religion protects their, you know, their icons of their religious symbols. That's ours. And so almost 10 years ago, it was actually Violet's father that formally proposed the sanctuary, you know, filed the paperwork with the federal government. He passed away last year. And Violet says, you know, it was his mission to see the creation of the Chumash Heritage National

Marine Sanctuary. It was so important with the name that the name reflects how, you know, we originally took care of this place. And that was, you know, my dad's hope was that we would walk and speak our language on our land again. And so now Violet is taking up that campaign? Yeah, yeah. She's been working on it tirelessly with her team. And, you know, she says they're not waiting for the federal government. They're acting like a sanctuary already by forming some partnerships. Oh, cool. So all we're going to do is get as close as we can without getting. our feet wet. So that's Steve Palumbi. He's a marine biologist at Stanford University. And he was out on a beach with Violet and some other too much tribal members because they're setting up a program to check on the health

of the ecosystem. They're basically doing a catalog of all the marine life there. And, you know, normally that's really expensive because you need boats and divers and, you know, just days of work from these research teams. And so they're actually going to use something else. Fishing rod actualized, metaprobe, E-DNA retriever. That sounds pretty high-tech. It does, but it's not high-tech, actually. It's a fishing rod. And at the end of the line, there's this kind of metal mesh wire ball hanging there.

And inside of it, it's kind of a wad of gauze in there. And that tells you what's swimming in the ocean, I'm guessing. It does, because what it's going to catch is DNA, Steve says. There's little bits and pieces of organisms. out there, scales from fish and little legs from sand crabs. So we should be thinking about the ocean as a soup of DNA. Yeah, like a soup, it's all floating around in there. And that's what the gauze is soaking in.

And then they bring it back to shore and they sequence the DNA, which tells them what's living in the ocean. So Steve is actually training tribal members to do this kind of monitoring themselves as a way to break down the barriers to science. It really is a way of showing that, yeah, this community. is involved not just in the history of the place, but the future of the place. So combining that with new data and their traditional knowledge is really one of the main things about this. So the idea is that tribal members can be the scientific team that's gathering samples and providing a better data set of what's in the ocean?

Yeah, that they would be doing it. They can do it more often. And that was really important to one person who was getting trained there, Mia Lopez. She's a cultural educator with the coastal band of the Chumash Nation. And she said they want to be part of taking care of this place, you know, especially with climate change and other threats that are having an impact. It affects the whole ocean. And so if we can see that change immediately because we're doing the research, then we can make change right away. She's actually part of the project to help incorporate traditional Chumash place names and words into the research. research because she said, you know, that's part of the traditional indigenous knowledge. You know, the names of places actually reveal things.

My village is Siokston. So Siokston means it grows together. And before they rerouted the creeks, the two creeks came together at my village to the ocean. You know, it just tells you so much about the land, just in that name. Wow. So if this sanctuary gets approved, how much more involved will the Chumash be in managing? it. Yeah. So in that that proposal from the federal government that just came out, there were several ways that they could be involved. One would be the creation of an intergovernmental policy council. So it would be the tribe and the government together and they'd come up with policy recommendations. That's actually something that's been piloted at another sanctuary at Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary in Washington. But here, it would only be one band of Chumash, the only one that's federally recognized. So that doesn't include Violet and the folks. she's been working with, they could be on another advisory board that's open to the public. So how does she feel about that? She's not happy because, you know, many California tribes are not federally recognized by the U.S.

Their treaties, they were negotiated, but when they went to Congress in the 1800s, Congress just didn't ratify them. Basically, they totally ignored them. So Violet wants to see all the bands of Chumash treated equally no matter their status. And then there is one more big issue, which is wind, wind, power because there's a big push to build these large floating wind turbines offshore. But that can't be built on a sanctuary, right? Yeah, exactly. So when Noah just released its proposal, it shaved off the northernmost part to create this kind of corridor, a zone, so these giant underwater cables can be built

to shore from the wind farms. But that means leaving out a sacred too much site in Morrow Bay. So that's another point of contention. You know, California has these really ambitious climate goals and building wind power will likely need to be a big part of that just in terms of, you know, how much renewable energy the state will need. So the question is whether those undersea cables could get special permits to go through a sanctuary or whether they just need to leave space for them. So it sounds like there's still some issues that need to be discussed before the sanctuary is finalized. Does it seem like there's a solution that everyone will be happy with? You know, I think it depends on the final decision that's set to come out next year because, you know, this is a tough relationship to work out. Vial told me it's still hard to trust the federal government after the way it's treated tribes over centuries. She does see change, but change happens slowly, and there's a lot on the line for her and her community. But, you know, she sees the sanctuary as something they're trying to protect, not just for themselves, you know, but for everyone. Our elder, Pallula, who has passed into spirit, she said that if you want to pray, you should put your feet in the water, because the water will take your prayers all over the whole world. world. And so I think about that. Like, basically, every time we do this work, we're praying

for a better world. We're praying that what we're doing is going to make a difference. Lauren, thank you so much for bringing us this reporting. Yeah, thank you for having me. To read Lauren's full story, see her episode notes. This episode was produced by Burley McCoy, edited by our managing producer Rebecca Ramirez and fact-checked by Anil Oza. The audio engineer was Maggie Luthor. Beth Donovan is our senior director and Anya Brenman is our senior vice president of programming. I'm Regina Barber and I'm Lauren Summer. Thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR.