he Chumash people viewed the Pacific Ocean as their first home. Their territory once spanned 7,000 sq miles, from the rolling hills of Paso Robles to the white sand beaches of Malibu. Now, the region is one of the most expensive in the US, home to resort hotels, vineyards and multimillion-dollar mansions.

The average house price in Avila Beach, California, where Violet Sage Walker grew up hunting for grunion in the midnight hours, is $1.9m (£1.5m).

“My father would walk across the creek on the backs of steelhead and salmon,” says Walker, the Chumash tribal chair. “They were that abundant. Now the water’s contaminated, from sewage, runoff and overpopulation. In one generation we’ve lost the ability to feed ourselves off the land.”

As stewards of that land, however, the Chumash remain an active presence. Today, Walker, her long black skirt rippling in the breeze, is conducting a ceremony for a local surf club that helps veterans connect with the ocean. Along with three other Chumash elders, she blesses a circle of veterans – all standing on their surfboards – with ceremonial sage, and sings an ancestral song used to call to whales.

Blue whales, along with southern sea otters, black abalone, snowy plovers and leatherback sea turtles, are just some of the species at risk here. The California coast is experiencing climate breakdown at twice the rate of other parts of the ocean, and acidification, caused by pollution, is the main threat to marine life.

Indeed, new development has plagued the area with pollution: pipeline spills dumping thousands of gallons of crude oil into the ocean; leaks from old petrol tanks seeping into groundwater; urban stormwater and agricultural runoffs polluting the streams. The threat of offshore oil drilling looms in the near future.

______________________________

LISTEN ALSO

Finding Thrivability: Dreaming of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary with Violet Sage Walker

American Shoreline Podcast, October 9, 2022

On this special rebroadcast from December 2021, Peter Ravella and Tyler Buckingham speak with Violet Sage Walker, the chairwoman of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council and the nominator of the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary. A descendant of Avila Beach and San Luis Obispo County, California, Violet is campaigning tirelessly for the proposed 140-mile Chumash National Marine Sanctuary, carrying on the legacy of her father who initiated the Sanctuary proposal process. Come along as we learn about the Chumash people and cultural heritage in the beautiful region of the American Shoreline.

_______________________________

On this special rebroadcast from December 2021, Peter Ravella and Tyler Buckingham speak with Violet Sage Walker, the chairwoman of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council and the nominator of the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary. A descendant of Avila Beach and San Luis Obispo County, California, Violet is campaigning tirelessly for the proposed 140-mile Chumash National Marine Sanctuary, carrying on the legacy of her father who initiated the Sanctuary proposal process. Come along as we learn about the Chumash people and cultural heritage in the beautiful region of the American Shoreline.

‍

That’s why Walker’s father, Fred Collins, the chief of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council, spent decades advocating to turn 156 miles of coastline here in central California into a national marine sanctuary, which would grant it federal protection. Not only would marine life, from sea otters to kelp forests, be preserved, but the proposed sanctuary would safeguard Chumash traditions.

Two days before he died unexpectedly in 2021, he passed to his daughter the legacy of realising his dream.

“He told me it was the most important thing he’d ever worked on in his life,” Walker says, as she walks through the early morning ocean fog on Avila Beach. “The sanctuary is a reflection of who we are, our people, and this land.”

If successful, it would be the first tribally nominated, tribally led sanctuary on the US mainland. The proposed site will be a co-management initiative between the Chumash, other local tribal groups and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(Noaa). Noaa manages 14 national marine sanctuaries – as well as the Papahānaumokuākea and Rose Atoll marine national monuments – but this would be the first in partnership with an Indigenous group.

The sanctuary would stretch from near the coastal village of Cambria, halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, to just south of Santa Barbara County, encompassing 7,670 sq miles of ocean.

"The sanctuary is a reflection of who we are, our people, and this land."

‍Violet Sage Walker

“It’s big – it’ll be six times the size of Yosemite,” says Stephen Palumbi, a professor of marine sciences at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station. “The question is – how do you monitor that big an area? How do you understand the dynamics, and relate climate change to what is going to happen in the future?”

Palumbi has been working with Walker using technology called environmental DNA, which identifies organisms from minute flecks of cellular material, to survey the proposed area. Monitoring will be key to understanding the impact of offshore development on marine life.

‍