Resource Guide

The Quinault Indian Nation (QIN) is a confederation of several tribes that have inhabited the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state for several thousand years. Traditionally, they have relied on seafood but mostly salmon as the major economic and culinary staple supplemented with hunting and gathering in the dense temperate rainforests of their homelands. Indigenous peoples were devastated in the Pacific Northwest by disease and discrimination, and ceded most of their land in 1855. Populations are beginning to reach pre-contact levels in the early twenty-first century. They are soon to be climate refugees as their main community on the Pacific coast, Taholah, will need to be relocated inland due to rising Pacific tides.

I sought to find out what strategies the QIN was taking to mitigate the impacts of ACC and extractive industries, but found that to make a living QIN members were largely co-opted by timber and fishing industries and it is already too late to save their ancestral coastal settlements. Currently, QIN is trying to prevent the construction of oil terminals and increased oil rail traffic through their land. I will begin the resource guide with the multimedia sources followed by scholarly works.

Decker, Jerry. "Paddle to Quinault Tribal Canoe Arrival". KSQM station 91.5 FM, Port Angeles, WA. Accessed 11/10/2015.

This is a brief news story summarizing the "Paddle to Quinault" event hosted by the QIN. It brought members from tribals all along the Pacific Coast from British Columbia to Oregon. The canoe, carved from a single, massive cedar, was an essential element of QIN culture because the massive ocean-going crafts not only allowed from the hunting of whales, but also helped establish a vibrant trade network that ran along the coast. This system would not have worked if they relied on going afoot due to dense rainforest. The practice of ocean-going canoes has been revived since the 1980s after a long absence.

Johnston, Tyson. "Quinault Indian Nation: Standing Up to Big Oil". Standing Up to Big Oil (9/24/2015). Accessed 11/10/2015.

Big Oil wants to add crude oil storage terminals and significantly increase rail traffic in Grays Harbor County, WA where the QIN has made its home since time immemorial. Despite the fact that ACC due to burning carbon is forcing QIN to move communities in the face of rising tides, oil company called "Imperium Renewables" and storage company Westway Terminals want to increase oil development on QIN lands. QIN Vice President Tyson Johnston elucidates the tribal position: they want no increase in oil transport through or storage on their lands. He argues that treaty rights and court precedents support the independence of the Quinault and their federal trust relationship with the federal government give them the right to prevent increased oil development. You can add your opposition to increased oil development on Quinault lands to a petition, here.

Matsukawa, Lori. "Quinault Tribe Explores Moving Town of Taholah". King County 5 News NBC, 2014. Accessed 11/10/2015.

This is a local news story that demonstrates the devastating impacts of ACC on the QIN and its cultural heritage. The main community for the QIN within its reservation, Taholah will have to be moved inland in its entirety. The QIN has to figure out how to move 1,700 residents, numerous artifacts and cultural heritage to higher ground. It is yet another example in the litanty of marginalized groups paying the highest costs of ACC while having enjoyed little of the benefits.


Find my scholarly, peer-reviewed sources below:

Brandt, Patric, Abson, David J. Dellasalla, Dominick et al “Multifunctionality and biodiversity: Ecosystem services in temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, USA”. Biological Conservation Vol. 169, 2014, 362-371.

This source describes the benefits and status of temperate rainforests. Pacific Northwest temperate rainforests provide myriad ecosystem services such as lumber, salmon, water regulation and recreation etc. They found high positive correlation between diverse ecosystem services and biodiversity. They argue that ecosystems must be managed for multifunction ecosystem services.

Eliot, Samuel A. “Conditions Among the Indians of the Northwest Coast”. Board of Indian Commissioners. (1915) 6-12.

Eliot was a member of the "Board of Indian Commissioners" which was tasked with implementing congressional mandates in the Allottment Act. This is a primary source that demonstrates the casual racism of the time, and the report openly admits that alloment cannot and will not work in QIN because the rainforest is too dense and ground too hilly and stony for productive agriculture.

Ernst, Alice Henson. The Wolf Ritual of the Northwest Coast. Eugene: University of Oregon, 1952. 1-6, 64-102.

The spiritual connection between QIN members and their coastal rainforest home is undeniable. The Quileute tribe's creation story involves the "Great Changer" creating the Quinault from wolves. This leads me to questions regarding large predators and the health of temperate rainforests.

Freundenburg, William R., Wilson, Lisa J., and O’Leary, Daniel J. “Forty Years of Spotted Owls? A Longitudinal Analysis of Logging Industry Job Losses”. Sociological Perspectives Vol. 41, No. 1 1998, 1-26 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1389351

After 40 years of controversy over the spotted owl, there is no evidence that protection of the raptor directly contributed to losses in jobs in the timber industry. This source demonstrates that saving the ecological integrity of the rainforest and its biodiversity does not necessarily lead to job losses.

 Intertribal Cultural Advisory Committee, ed. Wray, Jacilee. Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula: Who We Are. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. 99-150.

Written by a group of representatives of Olympic indigenous peoples, it demonstrates the history of these coastal tribes from their own perspective. It has a section for every relevant nation I wish to examine. This fact makes this source invaluable because it is not simply how white people interpreting someone else's history, but native peoples telling their own story.

Menzies, Charles R. and Butler, Caroline F. “The Indigenous Foundation of the Economy of BC’s North Coast.” Labour Vol. 61, 2008, 131-149   http://www.jstor.org/stable/25149857.

In contrast to often idyllic, romantic portrayals of indigenous people, this article focuses on the modern, contemporary place of coastal indigenous people in northern British Columbia coast.  It focuses on the Ts’msyen and Gitxaała and how they have been fundamental in the development of capitalist industry in British Columbia, not just helpless victims who are acted upon by outside forces. The development of capitalism on the BC coast was dependent upon indigenous peoples, first as independent producers in the traditional economy, then as labor in the industrial economy. By the late 20th century, the Ts’msyen and Gitxaała peoples had simultaneously adopted capitalismwhile also working to manipulate it and protest its most negative consequences.

Naiman, Robert J., Bechtold, J. Scott, Beechie, Timothy J. et al. “A Process-Based View of Floodplain Forest Patterns in Coastal River Valleys of the Pacific Northwest”. Ecosystems, Vol. 13. No. 2 2010 1-31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25622895.

The rich, biodiverse coastal temperate rainforests are the result of constantly eroding mountain slopes. These ecosystems are highly impacted by changes caused by agriculture and water flow manipulation. As a result, one of the most important facets of these ecosystems, andromous salmon, is in significant decline. This article focuses on the role of erosion in creating this ecosystem and how this process interacts with nutrients in the soil, including dead trees influence growth of trees and other vegetation biomass.

Olson, Ronald L. The Quinault Indians. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967.

This ethnography was essential because it was the first exhaustive anthropological examination of the Quinault people. It was very useful because it covers multiple layers on the onion of indigenous culture that existed pre-Contact. As with all old sources (this was originally published in the 1930s) there are some places that demonstrate a lack of cultural relativism.

Powell, J. V., and Vickie Jensen. Quileute: An Introduction to the Indians of La Push. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976.

This ethnography focuses specifically on the Quileute, the tribe most connected the wolf as a spiritual symbol. There are currently no wolves in the Olympic Peninsula but they were once so abundant they had an essential role in the Quileute mythology as the creatures humans were made from. 

Shanley, Colin S., Sanjay, Pyare, Michael I. Goldstein et al. "Climate Change Impications in Northern Coastal Temperate Rainforest of North America". Climatic Change, 2015, 155-70.

Temperate rainforests are vulnerable in the face of ACC, and changes to its ecosystems are now inevitable. Predicted changes are anticipated to cause a cascade of ecosystem-level effects such as: increased  flooding and rain-on-snow events; retreat of the snowline to higher elevations, reduced snowpack; changes in the timing and strength of stream-flow, freshwater and riverine nutrient exports; shrinking alpine habitats; altitudinal and latitudinal expansion of lowland and subalpine forest types; changes in suitable habitat boundaries for wildlife and plant communities; negative impacts on species with rare ecological niches or limited "dispersibility"; and shifts in salmon distribution and productivity.

Wilkinson, Charles F. Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations. New York: Norton, 2005. 170-173, 200-205.

This work focuses on the struggles of American Indians to retain treaty rights to hunting, fishing and other natural resources. Wilkinson examines the Quinault through the lens of fishing rights as their culture is reliant on salmon and other seafood. At the same time, there are also relevant court cases the author describes.

Sociopolitical Solutions: Carbon Tax, Cap and Trade, False Assumptions

The film, Carbon Hunters was a very well done demonstration of the possibilities of the cap and trade system and also shows some of the negative downsides of the system as well: poor rural women in India subsidizing excess carbon consumption by wealthy people in the global North could be seen as a kind of “carbon colonialism”. I sincerely disagree with the dismissal of the carbon tax out of hand in the film. I also take issue with Jessy’s hypothetical example when I brought this up in class: assuming a tax "in Minnesota" that made a gallon of gas $6, comparable to Europe.

There are a lot of problems with this scenario. First, a state gas tax like this would do little good because we don’t have a large enough population to impact ACC. People especially near border areas would simply drive to Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas to buy fuel - causing more carbon burning.  To be effective and have a chance of passing Congress, a carbon tax on retail consumers would have to be national and it would have to be small. Second, simply taxing retail gasoline would not relate to the most significant emitters of GHGs. Plus, we know that Americans are driving less already, so this is not a stable source of revenue.

Why is there an assumption that a carbon tax would be on consumers directly? This is a false assumption. Just like the assumption of the false dichotomy: carbon tax or cap and trade, we could do both! Sometimes we need to check our assumptions, as well as our ambitions.

Sure, maybe a small national carbon tax increase on gasoline is a good idea, but you slap significant carbon taxes on out of date coal plants and strip-mining coal operations (which do not employ as many people as they used to, anyway; eastern Kentucky and West Virginia are evidence of this), the Shells and Exxons of the world – or at least take their subsidies away! You go after polluters and carbon burners on the supply side. Yes, costs will filter down to the consumers, surely but it is far less heavy-handed than doubling the cost of gasoline. There will be pain, and unfortunately the poorest of the poor will bear the worst consequences - but this happens regardless of what climate policy we implement, the key for them is wage growth and a more robust welfare state, not holding back on climate policy.

It is better to be poor in the short term than dead from a famine or flooding in the long term.

But sometimes a little pain is a good thing. We need to price carbon and encourage less consumption other forms of energy consumption. The truth is that you cannot have your cake, and eat it too. You can’t have reductions in fossil fuel use unless it is painful to do so and there are more attractive opportunities.

Victory! TransCanada halts Keystone XL Pipeline!

Last night, the Associated Press reported here that the oil and gas corporation TransCanada  is withdrawing its application with the US federal government to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline through western Plains states from Canadian tar sands in Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. Contrary to popular rhetoric, the pipeline would’ve caused few and temporary jobs for Americans, Canadians would’ve seen most of the benefits. The profits generated by the pipeline would have gone to TransCanada, not American workers. This is a temporary victory for those who oppose increased greenhouse gas emissions.

If this seems strange to you that TransCanada is doing this, it shouldn’t. First of all, the prices of oil and gas are ridiculously low and not as profitable as previously so that combined with all the scrutiny and controversy perhaps made it no longer worth it for the bottom line. Also, it looks like in any event that President Obama will deny the application before he leaves office. Thus, TransCanada could also be hoping for a Republican president more amenable to increased fossil fuel burning.

This is a solid victory for climate activists and it produces good vibes/karma heading into Paris, but there is no time to rest on laurels. It reminds us that while international agreements are paramount to mitigating ACC, a lot of progress can be flushed down the toilet if – let’s be honest – a Republican in elected to the White House in 2016. You are not a climate activist if you do not vote. Not showing up the polls is like ceding a vote to the Republicans. If young people and ethnic minorities show up to the polls in 2016, there will not be a “climate skeptic” in the White House.