Imaq comes from the Sugt’stun language meaning the ocean and the contents within it. The Chugach Imaq Project was founded by Chugach Regional Resources Commission (CRRC) to support Indigenous-led research and harvest management of marine mammals within the Chugach Region, while safeguarding subsistence needs of the Eyak and Sugpiaq tribes.
Return to Ecosystems
With funding from the NDN Collective, the Marine Mammal Commission (MMC), and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy (ACCAP), CRRC developed a pilot project, partnering with Huntington Consulting, the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADFG) Subsistence Division, and ADFG Marine Mammal Program. The products resulting from this project included a research protocol that combines ethnographic interviews with citizen science, a special report compiling all existing quantitative and qualitative data on marine mammals in the Chugach Region, an Indigenous-led sampling program supported by the Indigenous Sentinels Network (ISN), and a list of key ‘next steps’ to continue developing research and management capacity.
Building on the Chugach Imaq Project, USGS Alaska Science Center, US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and CRRC initiated the Chugach Imaq Research Collaborative (CIRC), the goal of which is to build a better collaborative foundation for co-producing science used to support co-management of marine mammals and ecosystems in the Chugach Region. CIRC includes members from the National Park Service (NPS), NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), ADFG, MMC, ISN, and other regional and local partners, such as the Native Village of Eyak.
The formation of CIRC responds to Joint-Secretarial Order No. 3403 mandating co-stewardship of federal lands, waters, and wildlife with Indigenous groups, along with recent executive orders to incorporate Indigenous Knowledge in federal decision making, as well as USFWS Director’s Orders to strategically engage with Alaska Native Tribes and Indigenous partners—all orders and directives from federal leadership that are trickling down to the scientist level. A founding tenet of CIRC is that these efforts can be best achieved by direct scientist-to-scientist collaboration among staff at the participating organizations.
To set the stage for what will be a long-term effort to co-produce science and monitoring to better inform the co-management and promote co-stewardship of marine mammals and ecosystems in the Chugach Region, USGS, USFWS, and CRRC, with support from the Science Support Program, hosted a workshop in Cordova, AK in September 2024. The workshop brought together 29 CIRC members, representing over a dozen agencies/organizations, to synthesize the current state of science and monitoring in the Chugach region and identify priority areas for improving collaboration and capacity building. A report on this meeting is available to download at: https://crrcalaska.org/marine-mammal-program/#CIRC
Imaq comes from the Sugt’stun language meaning the ocean and the contents within it. The Chugach Imaq Project was founded by Chugach Regional Resources Commission (CRRC) to support Indigenous-led research and harvest management of marine mammals within the Chugach Region, while safeguarding subsistence needs of the Eyak and Sugpiaq tribes.
Return to Ecosystems
With funding from the NDN Collective, the Marine Mammal Commission (MMC), and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy (ACCAP), CRRC developed a pilot project, partnering with Huntington Consulting, the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADFG) Subsistence Division, and ADFG Marine Mammal Program. The products resulting from this project included a research protocol that combines ethnographic interviews with citizen science, a special report compiling all existing quantitative and qualitative data on marine mammals in the Chugach Region, an Indigenous-led sampling program supported by the Indigenous Sentinels Network (ISN), and a list of key ‘next steps’ to continue developing research and management capacity.
Building on the Chugach Imaq Project, USGS Alaska Science Center, US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and CRRC initiated the Chugach Imaq Research Collaborative (CIRC), the goal of which is to build a better collaborative foundation for co-producing science used to support co-management of marine mammals and ecosystems in the Chugach Region. CIRC includes members from the National Park Service (NPS), NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), ADFG, MMC, ISN, and other regional and local partners, such as the Native Village of Eyak.
The formation of CIRC responds to Joint-Secretarial Order No. 3403 mandating co-stewardship of federal lands, waters, and wildlife with Indigenous groups, along with recent executive orders to incorporate Indigenous Knowledge in federal decision making, as well as USFWS Director’s Orders to strategically engage with Alaska Native Tribes and Indigenous partners—all orders and directives from federal leadership that are trickling down to the scientist level. A founding tenet of CIRC is that these efforts can be best achieved by direct scientist-to-scientist collaboration among staff at the participating organizations.
To set the stage for what will be a long-term effort to co-produce science and monitoring to better inform the co-management and promote co-stewardship of marine mammals and ecosystems in the Chugach Region, USGS, USFWS, and CRRC, with support from the Science Support Program, hosted a workshop in Cordova, AK in September 2024. The workshop brought together 29 CIRC members, representing over a dozen agencies/organizations, to synthesize the current state of science and monitoring in the Chugach region and identify priority areas for improving collaboration and capacity building. A report on this meeting is available to download at: https://crrcalaska.org/marine-mammal-program/#CIRC