Sitka Tribe of Alaska Environmental Research Lab

In recent years, climate change has caused new patterns in ocean temperatures along the Alaskan coast, threatening shellfish. Warming waters increase the frequency and duration of harmful algal blooms. These events produce biotoxins that make marine resources unsafe for human consumption. Traditional ecological knowledge held that harvesting shellfish was safe during the winter months, but rapidly changing ocean conditions made these long-standing guidelines unreliable.

A few years after the formation of SEATOR, the Sitka Tribe of Alaska launched its Environmental Research Lab with the specific intent of providing regional capacity to test shellfish for toxins. SEATOR communities send biweekly samples to the Lab, which tests them using the receptor binding assay method developed by the National Center for Coastal Ocean Science. The Sitka Tribe of Alaska Environmental Research Lab is the only facility in Alaska that routinely tests shellfish for subsistence and recreational harvesting.

The lab provides training to SEATOR partner communities on water quality assessment, proper sample collection techniques, and data management. It now routinely monitors over fifty coastal sites for 27 tribes and processes almost 1,000 samples annually and flags hundreds of shellfish that are over the biotoxin regulatory limit. There has not been a single case of paralytic shellfish poisoning from harvested resources in any of the 52 partner sites.

The Environmental Research Lab plays a central role in supporting inter-tribal collaboration by providing testing capacity and outreach for SEATOR. The partners, who meet annually to share information and discuss tribal priorities, guide lab activities. It has also developed close working relationships with various non-tribal partners through its broad geographic reach and technical excellence. In 2019, the Tribe worked with the state of Alaska to draft and disseminate a statewide public service announcement warning about the dangers of paralytic shellfish poisoning.

Lessons
Tribal management of ecological resources expands tribal sovereignty.

Communities that rely on subsistence farming are best protected from the harmful impacts of climate change when inter-tribal collaboration and building community engagement are prioritized.

Sovereignty through science is driven by partnering with credible external entities and directly engaging tribal authority.