Last week Sarah posted a message on OlyBlog shedding light on the travails that the Native American tribe faces as it fishes in the Nisqually River. I would highly recommend exploring some of the links that Sarah posted, but I’ll return to that later. While I am hesitant to put too much thought into what was perhaps simply a moronic and isolated occurrence, I do think there are some interesting issues that deserve a bit of attention.

The Olympian’s coverage referenced U.S. v. Washington which I found to be a fascinating case, not necessarily for the legal reasoning as much as the comprehensive historical study. Judge Boldt’s clerks (and certainly the lawyers who filed the briefs) went to great lengths to trace the authority of the United States and its several states to inject itself into native tribal affairs. It is easy to forget that whenever a court takes any sort of jurisdiction at all, it must be drawn for an authority that complies with the Constitution. This is basic ‘rule of law’ (as opposed to rule of people) stuff that we are so fond of extolling about our country. Take a look:

1. Art. VI, cl. 2 of the United States Constitution provides:

The ‘Constitution . . . of the United States . . . and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.’

[…]

3. The United States Supreme Court in Missouri (252 U.S. p. 434, 40 S.Ct. p. 384) stated:

‘Valid treaties of course ‘are as binding within the territorial limits of the States as they are elsewhere throughout the dominion of the United States.’ Baldwin v. Franks, 120 U.S. 678, 683, 7 S.Ct. 656, 32 L.Ed. 766.’

[…]

[2] 6. ‘. . . The (treaty) negotiations were with the tribe. They reserved rights, however, to every individual Indian, as though named therein . . .. And the right was intended to be continuing against the United States and its grantees as well as against the State and its grantees.’^FN11 That those rights are also reserved to the descendants*332 of treaty Indians, without limitation in time, excepting as Congress may determine, has been recognized and applied by the United States Supreme Court from the first to the latest decision of that court involving Indian treaty fishing rights.  [Emphasis added.]

I have little experience in these areas of law, and I don’t want to explore even the broader issues of this case. I clipped the language up only to show that the rights that exist today come at the end of a long line of legal authority that can be traced all the way back to the Constitution (a document often revered but rarely read). While the legal issues are relevant here, they are not compelling for most people who aren’t legal scholars.  The Boldt decision effectively affirmed the right, granted by treaty, of the Nisqually tribe to fish in the Nisqually River. (There are greater issues at play here that I will not touch upon but one of which might be, how did Americans become the one granting the tribes the right to fish on the lands which they did not inherit?)

Suffice it to say the Nisqually Tribe has an interest in the river which carries its food. With that interest comes responsibility, which I would say becomes the crux of the most salient point of graffiti appearing on the overpass. One of the resources that I could call the spawn of Sarah’s links is the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s fact sheet called How tribes and state co-manage salmon and steelhead. Have a look:

The state and tribes have been working closely to develop the scientific tools necessary to address one of the key reasons for the decline of Washington salmon stocks: loss and degradation of freshwater and estuarine habitats.

The state and tribes in 1992 produced the Salmon Stock Inventory (SaSI), a critical document for wild fish recovery. SaSI definitively identified the status of each wild stock in categories ranging from extinct to healthy, and provided a system to monitor their status. As habitat recovery efforts by the state, tribes and citizen groups shift into high gear, SaSI, currently being updated, will help ensure restoration efforts are working.

Besides SaSI, the state and tribes also collaborate with citizens on another key science-based research program essential to wild salmon recovery: the Salmon and Steelhead Habitat Inventory and Assessment Project (SSHIAP). SSHIAP is a computerized information system developed by the Washington department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), the tribes and others to catalogue details about habitat and map fish stock distributions as well as stock status. SSHIAP, in conjunction with other tools, also enables scientists to estimate the number of wild salmon that can be produced in sections of rivers.

State and tribal biologists also are working cooperatively to develop comprehensive management plans for coho and chinook salmon, among the most prized species in the Northwest.

Putting ourselves in the other person’s shoes, maybe the issue is should anyone be allowed to reduce the stock of salmon when the stocks are already in a perilously diminished state? Is that what compels people to paint inflammatory remarks on an overpass?  If so, I suppose the issue becomes who can rely on to be more effective in the ultimate mission of salmon restoration? I’ve yet to hear words like the following from the annals of state officialdom and don’t get me started with the Fed’s:

We’re not giving up, though, and we’re sure as hell not getting tired.

I’m hearing complaints about salmon fatigue at the same time we’re trying to muster the strength to clean up Puget Sound. I’ll tell you, getting tired of salmon sure isn’t going to get us any closer to rescuing Puget Sound.

We can’t risk salmon fatigue becoming Puget Sound fatigue.

It’s kind of funny, but the people who are around salmon the most, like fishermen, don’t get salmon fatigue. You would think that people who spend their lives around salmon would be more likely to get tired of them, but they don’t.

The salmon sure don’t get tired. They come back to the rivers every year in the hope that we have turned ourselves around and have worked to restore and protect their homes.

Now is the time we should be making great strides in our efforts to recover Puget Sound chinook and other listed species, but instead we are seeing less and less funding for this work.

In fact, when adjusted for inflation, the treaty Indian tribes in western Washington now receive less funding for salmon management than we did 30 years ago.

This lack of funding might slow us down, but it won’t stop us. We won’t let it.

These words for me have been more inspiring than anything I’ve heard from President Obama, and they are actually those of our own local visionary. If this issue is about racism, the answer is easy: “Its better to be thought a fool rather than to speak up and remove all doubt.” If it’s about concern for our natural environment, I think you’d be hard pressed to say that the concern isn’t shared. If we actually only disagree on the solution, there are better ways to creating dialogues than painting swears on a freeway overpass. Change starts with you.