The Canoe Journey - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 141

Five years later, the relationship continues to yield positive results:
Since 2008, the Coast Salish Nation and Swinomish Indian Tribal Community
in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey has examined the coastal waters
of the Salish Sea providing a new strategy that blends western science and
Coast Salish culture to study water-quality and its effects on ecosystem
dynamics.
(USGS, 2013)
The partnership is designed to help identify some of the key areas where coastal
water quality and habitat problems are affecting the marine resources of the Coast
Salish ecoregion. The USGS scientists help to determine what approaches will work
for assessing water quality, and deploy the instrumentation to measure and interpret
the data. Educational outreach is also part of the process, training the canoe partici-
pants on how to use the equipment and participate in the science of water quality
assessment.
When asked why this is important for USGS, the head USGS scientist and
project coordinator Eric Grossman noted:
[T]heir identity is tied to the Coast Salish ecoregion. And so, being able to
maintain the function of that ecosystem is paramount to their culture and their
existence. And so, for science and resource management, this journey offers
a very unique way of conducting the science in an effective way behind a
traditional canoe which doesn't disrupt the water, as instruments are deployed
behind them measuring various water quality parameters and habitat traits.
And so, this becomes a really interesting opportunity to blend tradition and
science as well as traditional knowledge to better understand what are the
environmental changes that are occurring today. Are they impacting some of
the coastal resources that we depend on; resources like salmons that are -
many species that are plummeting in their population today, a number of
shellfish species and even endangered orca that are symbols of the entire Pacific
Northwest.
In a short video on the partnership , 2 E ric Grossman and Brian Cladoosby, chairman
of the Swinomish Tribe of western Washington, speak about the benefits of the
partnership. Both Grossman and Cladoosby focus on the youth. Grossman reflects:
The children are getting to know their environment. They have appreciation
for it. They look for the animals. In fact along the way they're singing and
playing games like “I spy a certain animal” and all the kids on the canoe end
up looking for the same animal that the one called out. It will be interesting
to see how this information can be used by those folks and the children
especially to engage them in better understanding some of the water quality
issues and their environmental problems for the future and hopefully they will
be able to use it to develop better management practices.