Northwest 'Salmon People' Face Future Without Fish | PBS NewsHour | July 18, 2012 | PBS
Native people making sustainable living local. They offer adaption, not just anger.
This is positive news. And yes sad that they have to so strongly adapt because of the impacts of others.
Very interesting article.
"Alan Hamlet, a hydrologist with the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, said that glacier loss is devastating the salmon habitat.
"Glaciers are a kind of water tower, a way of storing water under natural conditions, and when we lose that water tower, then the flows in the summer go down," Hamlet said.
Glaciers also keep rivers consistently cool throughout the year. Without them, stream temperatures climb. Temperatures that rise above 70 degrees are lethal to adult salmon. And researchers at University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group project that by 2080, nearly half of the streams they monitor throughout the state will average weekly temperatures of at least 70 degrees.
...The Swinomish reservation occupies 15 square miles of the Fidalgo Island in Puget Sound near the mouth of the Skagit River, a waterway fed by nearly 400 glaciers and one of the last remaining homes to all five species of Pacific salmon.
Fifteen percent of the reservation is at or just slightly above sea level, including environmentally-sensitive shoreline areas, where they've harvested shellfish for centuries. University of Washington climate scientists estimate that this area could see up to a meter of sea level rise over the next century.
Like many tribal communities, the Swinomish can't just pick up and move out of harm's way. Relocating is antithetical to who they are, said Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community.
"We are a place-based society," he said. "This is our homeland. The Swinomish have lived here for 10,000 years...."
Native people making sustainable living local. They offer adaption, not just anger.
This is positive news. And yes sad that they have to so strongly adapt because of the impacts of others.
Very interesting article.
"Alan Hamlet, a hydrologist with the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, said that glacier loss is devastating the salmon habitat.
"Glaciers are a kind of water tower, a way of storing water under natural conditions, and when we lose that water tower, then the flows in the summer go down," Hamlet said.
Glaciers also keep rivers consistently cool throughout the year. Without them, stream temperatures climb. Temperatures that rise above 70 degrees are lethal to adult salmon. And researchers at University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group project that by 2080, nearly half of the streams they monitor throughout the state will average weekly temperatures of at least 70 degrees.
...The Swinomish reservation occupies 15 square miles of the Fidalgo Island in Puget Sound near the mouth of the Skagit River, a waterway fed by nearly 400 glaciers and one of the last remaining homes to all five species of Pacific salmon.
Fifteen percent of the reservation is at or just slightly above sea level, including environmentally-sensitive shoreline areas, where they've harvested shellfish for centuries. University of Washington climate scientists estimate that this area could see up to a meter of sea level rise over the next century.
Like many tribal communities, the Swinomish can't just pick up and move out of harm's way. Relocating is antithetical to who they are, said Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community.
"We are a place-based society," he said. "This is our homeland. The Swinomish have lived here for 10,000 years...."
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