Bi-Directional Learning: Identifying Contaminants on the Yurok Indian Reservation.

The Yurok Tribe partnered with the University of California Davis (UC Davis) Superfund Research Program to identify and address contaminants in the Klamath watershed that may be impairing human and ecosystem health. We draw on a community-based participatory research approach that begins with community concerns, includes shared duties across the research process, and collaborative interpretation of results. A primary challenge facing University and Tribal researchers on this project is the complexity of the relationship(s) between the identity and concentrations of contaminants and the diversity of illnesses plaguing community members. The framework of bi-directional learning includes Yurok-led river sampling, Yurok traditional ecological knowledge, University lab analysis, and collaborative interpretation of results. Yurok staff and community members share their unique exposure pathways, their knowledge of the landscape, their past scientific studies, and the history of landscape management, and University researchers use both specific and broad scope chemical screening techniques to attempt to identify contaminants and their sources. Both university and tribal knowledge are crucial to understanding the relationship between human and environmental health. This paper examines University and Tribal researchers' shared learning, progress, and challenges at the end of the second year of a five-year Superfund Research Program (SRP) grant to identify and remediate toxins in the lower Klamath River watershed. Our water quality research is framed within a larger question of how to best build university-Tribal collaboration to address contamination and associated human health impacts.

Indigenous studies speaks to environmental management.

This article describes the increasing connections between the fields of Indigenous studies and environmental management and examines some of the ways that an Indigenous studies perspective can guide thinking about environmental management. Indigenous groups have been involved in the management of environmental and natural resources on their lands since time immemorial. Indigenous groups have also become increasingly involved in Western practices of environmental management with the advent of co-management institutions, subsistence boards, traditional ecological knowledge forums, and environmental issues affecting Indigenous resources. Thus, it is an important time for scholarship that explores how Indigenous groups are both shaping and being affected by processes of environmental management. This article summarizes key findings and themes from eight papers situated at the intersection of these two fields of study and identify means by which environmental managers can better accommodate Indigenous rights and perspectives. It is the authors' hope that increased dialog between Indigenous studies and environmental management can contribute to the building of sustainable and socially just environmental management practices.

"Just another hoop to jump through?" using environmental laws and processes to protect indigenous rights.

Protection of culturally important indigenous landscapes has become an increasingly important component of environmental management processes, for both companies and individuals striving to comply with environmental regulations, and for indigenous groups seeking stronger laws to support site protection and cultural/human rights. Given that indigenous stewardship of culturally important sites, species, and practices continues to be threatened or prohibited on lands out of indigenous ownership, this paper examines whether or not indigenous people can meaningfully apply mainstream environmental management laws and processes to achieve protection of traditional sites and associated stewardship activities. While environmental laws can provide a "back door" to protect traditional sites and practices, they are not made for this purpose, and, as such, require specific amendments to become more useful for indigenous practitioners. Acknowledging thoughtful critiques of the cultural incommensurability of environmental law with indigenous environmental stewardship of sacred sites, I interrogate the ability of four specific environmental laws and processes-the Uniform Conservation Easement Act; the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act; the Pacific Stewardship Council land divestiture process; and Senate Bill 18 (CA-2004)-to protect culturally important landscapes and practices. I offer suggestions for improving these laws and processes to make them more applicable to indigenous stewardship of traditional landscapes.