yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribe
Overview
Award Amount: $206,917
Region: Central Coast
Focus Areas:
- Aquaculture restoration (abalone and shellfish)
- Education and outreach, specifically formation of an environmental and climate literacy program
- Habitat restoration (creek and estuarine)
- Land-back
- Land stewardship
About the Tribe
yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini (ytt) Northern Chumash Tribe’s vision is to once again be stewards of their coast. The Tribe envisions a future in which it has sovereign rights to manage its land and resources and indigenous knowledge is revived and sought after as their community works together to construct a sustainable future for their coastal ecosystems. To achieve their vision, the Tribe will secure funding to both sustain permanent staff and build capacity to work on land-back and climate resiliency projects, such as a resilient aquaculture hub with local shellfish restoration.
Project Plans
The ytt Northern Chumash Tribe has several projects they are working on with partners, but lack of capacity has limited their ability to advance this work and to adequately manage existing grant funds to continue to develop future proposals to keep project momentum going. With additional capacity from the Tribal Capacity Building Program, the Tribe hopes to advance the following climate action projects: 1) land-back projects to secure ownership of ancestral lands along the coast to dictate best stewardship activities for these lands; 2) creek and estuarine restoration efforts with partners in multiple coastal watersheds; 3) Tribal-led aquaculture and abalone restoration to establish a climate-resilient, Tribally led aquaculture facility for commercial production and restoration efforts as well as establishing a Tribal network along the coast to increase the transfer of traditional native aquaculture knowledge between Tribal entities interested in regaining access to native food supplies; and 4) education and outreach to form an environmental and climate literacy program for middle school students where the Tribe will lead Traditional Ecological Knowledge and social justice units within the program.
Site Visit
yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribe hosted a site visit around Morro Bay, CA that included a tour of an aquaculture facility that the Tribe is hoping to reclaim in its ancestral homeland. The Tribe plans to restore a productive abalone farm that grew seven different species, two of which were endangered. The Tribe is working to acquire the facility and plans to bring back these species once under Tribal ownership.
" [The abalone farm] would be a restoration of [the Tribe's] life ways, not just conservation. This work has a ripple effect across all communities, not just Tribal.”
Contact Information
Becca Lucas Thomas, Executive Director, ytt Northern Chumash Nonprofit
Learn more about yak tityu tityu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribe.
Instagram: @yttnonprofit