NWIFC Chair Blasts Cuts To Federally Supported Fisheries Programs

THE FOLLOWING IS THE MONTHLY “BEING FRANK” COLUMN FROM NORTHWEST INDIAN FISHERIES COMMISSION CHAIR ED JOHNSTONE

Tribes in western Washington are already seeing the impacts of presidential executive orders on funding that supports the management of treaty-reserved resources and the region’s robust economy.

These funding cuts, coupled with mass layoffs of the federal scientists we work with to manage and protect our treaty-reserved resources, are contrary to the federal government’s trustee obligation to protect and implement the treaties we signed in the 1850s, reserving the right to fish, hunt and gather in our traditional areas.

Our treaty rights have been upheld twice by the U.S. Supreme Court and are protected as property rights under the Fifth Amendment. In addition, the 2022 PUGET Save Our Sound Act legally obligates federal agencies to coordinate with tribes to set priorities to recover Puget Sound, designated an estuary of significance by the National Estuary Program.

Planning annual fishing seasons is challenging enough as tribal and state co-managers must divide up diminishing numbers of harvestable salmon. This year was even more difficult because of the hundreds of jobs eliminated at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Those who remained were constrained by budget cuts and agency reductions.

So far, NOAA has received only half the annual funding it needs to implement ocean sampling programs, conduct chinook stock assessments and support habitat recovery efforts from Oregon to Alaska. This reduction impacts state and tribal salmon management and recovery efforts at a magnitude that exceeds our ability to find other funding to make up the shortfall.

Managing sustainable fisheries depends on NOAA’s participation, which includes analysis and production of compliance documents. Even slight delays to these reports could cancel a tribal or state fishery, costing thousands of jobs, harming the national and international food supply, diminishing the exercise of our tribal treaty rights, and devastating the marine-based economy.

Another program that could be cut is the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund, which would endanger more than 70 tribal jobs essential to fisheries monitoring and evaluation that support our treaty rights and the region’s fishing economy.

Federal cuts to NOAA and the Bureau of Indian Affairs also threaten the hatchery programs that provide more than 80% of salmon harvested by tribal and nontribal fishers in the Pacific Northwest. Tribal hatcheries release about 40 million salmon each year. Without federal funding, we won’t be able to maintain and upgrade aging facilities, implement hatchery management plans, or conduct the research and monitoring needed to rear healthy broodstock. 

Also in danger is the U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystems Program, which includes the Fish Health Program at the Western Fisheries Research Center. This work is essential to ensuring we have the most up-to-date knowledge about pathogens to prevent their spread in salmon at all life stages.

Our tribal sovereignty to manage our own treaty-protected natural resources depends on funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), such as the Puget Sound Geographic Program, to support research and monitoring. EPA funding also supports our participation in bottom-up, cross-agency partnerships with federal, state and local agencies to steward fishery and wildlife resources. 

Even without cuts to specific programs, reductions in staff could delay disbursement of funds that enable tribes to participate in necessary processes to protect our treaty-reserved rights. These include intergovernmental fishery management processes, U.S./Canada fishing treaties, fisheries forecasts, watershed analyses and numerous other scientific exercises critical for adaptive management of treaty-reserved fishing.

Federal funding supports tribes’ capacity to engage in these critical processes that are essential to upholding treaty rights and protecting resources such as salmon and shellfish—both economic drivers in the Pacific Northwest. Investing in salmon recovery directly and indirectly supports jobs in restoration projects, fishing, transportation and tourism.

Government support of tribal natural resources management is not optional. The United States has a trust obligation to protect tribal treaty rights to fish, hunt and gather as we always have. That includes providing the funding we need and conducting necessary administrative functions in a timely manner to allow us to exercise our treaty rights and protect natural resources for the next seven generations.