The Wrangell Cooperative Association will assist with a two-year research project into seafood consumption rates, intended to help state officials understand the importance of clean water and healthy seafood for the community’s Indigenous population.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Tribal Climate Resilience Program has approved a $130,000 grant to the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, which will administer the program and work with WCA.
The project will include a survey of current and past seafood consumption and its importance to people’s diets, said Esther Ashton, the WCA tribal administrator.
The survey will ask about salmon, eulachon (hooligan), halibut, crab and shellfish consumption. “Any traditional foods,” Ashton said.
The surveys will not get underway until next year, with the project to include community meetings to explain the work and later review the survey results, said Frederick Olsen Jr., of Sitka, the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission’s executive director.
The Wrangell project is a first for the group, though it hopes to conduct similar research projects elsewhere in Southeast in the future, Olsen said.
“This is our first federal money,” he said.
SEITC, a consortium of 15 sovereign tribal nations in Southeast, works on water quality issues, in particular to protect the region against the risks of mining wastes flowing into Southeast waters through the three transboundary rivers: Stikine, Taku and Unuk.
“Our foods are safe and healthy to eat. It is important we keep it that way for our future generations,” SEITC chair Rob Sanderson Jr. said in a prepared statement.
Reader Comments(0)