Tribes are steadfast about their treaty shellfish harvest rights. If we weren’t, our livelihoods and cultures would disappear. In Mystery Bay, off Marrowstone Island, several tribes are working hard to make sure that their shellfish harvesting rights aren’t hurt by pollution that could be prevented.

The state Department of Health has been monitoring the number of boats in the bay, some of them moored year round. During…

The Hoh Tribe and the Hoh River are connected by a bond that can never be broken. Forever, as the river moved, so did the tribe.

But that came to a stop after treaty times, when the tribe was confined to a 640-acre reservation at the river’s mouth. Over the years the Hoh River has whittled the reservation to about 450 acres and much of the land…

Cooperative natural resources co-management at its best was displayed during this year’s North of Falcon process for setting Indian and non-Indian salmon fishing seasons in western Washington. The results were protection of weak wild stocks and more fishing opportunity for everyone. We were able to once again fairly share the burden of conserving weak stocks while also sharing harvest opportunity where it exists.

Tribes modified their fishing…

OLYMPIA — For years, Skagit County has been a battleground between fishermen and farmers. After a recent court victory the Swinomish Tribe is finding a way for the once warring sides to come together for the good of salmon habitat.

A few years back, the Swinomish Tribe sued Skagit County Dike District No. 22 for building tide gates without the permits they needed from the U.S. Army Corps…

We’re marking an important milestone in cooperative salmon co-management this year. It’s the 25th anniversary of the North of Falcon process for setting treaty tribal and non-Indian fishing seasons in western Washington.

We’ve sure come a long ways in that time.

The 1974 Boldt decision made it clear: Treaty Indian tribes in western Washington had reserved rights to half of the harvestable salmon returning to state waters and…

OLYMPIA – Indians in the Pacific Northwest feel a new era of respect and collaboration is here, and we’re ready to get to work with the new administration.

We were especially encouraged to hear President Obama’s pledge to honor “treaty obligations that are owed to the first Americans,” when he introduced Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar as the new Secretary of the Interior.

OLYMPIA – There’s a new bug that’s been going around for the last couple years. State and federal elected officials and bureaucrats seem to be coming down with it more than anyone else.

It’s called “salmon fatigue” and from what I can tell, it’s a brain infection that makes you tired of trying to save the salmon.

If we cried about fatigue every time we came up against…

Are rockfish stocks off the coast of Washington state in the same condition as rockfish population hundreds of miles away in California? Probably not, but the way we manage them now, we’re assuming that the two diverse stocks are identical.

We need to be as tough as the salmon themselves if we’re going to see their recovery.

South Fork Nooksack River native spring chinook are almost extinct and need our help. It wasn’t long ago when about 13,000 of these early-timed chinook came back to the river each year. They were the first salmon to arrive each spring, feeding Indian people after long winters, when no other…

What would it matter if we clean up Puget Sound but the rivers feeding it run dry?

We came a small step closer to making sure we always have water in our rivers recently when King County Judge Jim Rogers struck down a bad piece of state water law. He ruled that the state legislature made a mistake in 2003 when it passed Municipal Water Law 1338,…