Indigenous Leaders Fawn Sharp, Francesca Hillery, and Ken Paul on the Role of Indigenous Knowledge in Ocean Climate Solutions

In this episode of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Carbon to Sea’s Senior Manager for Communications Danny Gawlowski record from Carbon to Sea’s 2026 Annual Convening in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. They sit down with Fawn Sharp, and Francesca Hillery, and Ken Paul for a conversation on Indigenous knowledge systems, ocean climate solutions, and the future of ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE).

In this episode, Anna and Danny explore how Indigenous knowledge can shape ocean-based carbon dioxide removal (oCDR). They’re joined by Indigenous leaders: Ken Paul, former national Director of Fisheries with the Assembly of First Nations, current Principal of Pokiok Associates and member of the Wolastoqey Nation at Neqotkuk; Fawn Sharp, former president of the National Congress of American Indians, former president of the Quinault Indian Nation, and current President of Indigenous Greenhouse Gas Removal Commission; and Francesca Hillery, Director of Programs and Partnerships for Tribal Carbon Solutions and member of the Round Valley Tribes in California, to discuss the importance of meaningful partnership, sovereignty, and Indigenous science in climate innovation.

Fawn, Francesca, and Ken reflect on the role of Indigenous knowledge systems in environmental stewardship, emphasizing that these systems are grounded in centuries of observation, ecological understanding, and relationships with the natural world, and paired with cutting-edge scientific capabilities. Sharp emphasizes there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to Indigenous engagement. Instead, meaningful relationships should be collaborative, equitable, and rooted in Indigenous-led science and governance.

The conversation also explores the risks of developing oCDR without collaboration with Indigenous communities. Without Indigenous input, Paul and Hillery warn of premature scaling and the commodification of nature. They emphasized the opportunity for Indigenous knowledge to guide and influence this emerging field.  

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly podcast exploring ocean-based climate solutions, brought to you by the Carbon to Sea Initiative and the American University Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal.

ACRONYMS/CONCEPTS:

• mCDR: marine carbon dioxide removal
• oCDR: ocean-based carbon dioxide removal
• OAE: ocean alkalinity enhancement
• NGO: non-governmental organization
• FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization
• UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
• COP: Conference of the Parties
• IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• GIS: Geographic Information Systems

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly podcast exploring ocean-based climate solutions, brought to you by the Carbon to Sea Initiative & the American University Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal.

Transcript

Anna Madlener (00:15): Welcome to a special in person recording of the Plan Sea Podcast. I'm Anna Madlener, and I'm here with my wonderful colleague, Danny Gawlowski, and he's filling in once again for my co host, Wil Burns, who couldn't be with us today. We're recording in Halifax Nova Scotia, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq, and we're here just after the Carbon to Sea annual convening. Carbon to Sea is a nonprofit initiative that funds and accelerates the evaluation of the safety and efficacy of ocean alkalinity enhancement as one of the most promising marine carbon dioxide removal approaches. And every year we we gather more than 200 people for our annual convening. At this year's annual convening, we hosted a group of First Nation and Native American leaders, and also had a workshop on how to better incorporate Indigenous knowledge in this emerging field of ocean based climate solutions. So
I'll hand it over to Danny to introduce you all. Thank you for being here.

Danny Gawlowski (1:10): Well, it's humbling to be able to give these introductions and to be joined at this table by three esteemed guests. I'm so excited for this conversation, and I'm going to do a very brief introduction. First of all, Ken Paul. Ken, thank you for being here. Ken organized the workshop as well as the Indigenous delegation to the convening. Ken is the principal and owner of Pokiok Associates, a consulting group dedicated to empowering Indigenous leadership in the blue economy, ocean sector. Next, we have Francesca Hillery, director of programs and partnerships for Tribal Carbon Solutions. She's working to support Tribal Sovereignty in carbon removal efforts. And Fawn Sharp. Fawn has served five terms as president of the Quinault Indian Nation.She has served as president of the National Congress of American Indians in many leadership roles. Currently, Fawn is the chair of the Indigenous Greenhouse Gas Removal Commission, as well as the council member to the World Economic Forum of Global Future Council for Natural Capital. You all have so many leadership positions. This was a quick introduction, but I would really like to go around and have each of you speak about the other roles that you have played and how that has led you to working on ocean based carbon solutions. Ken?

Ken Paul (2:31): Sure, so I'm a member of the Wolastoqey nation in a community we call Kulasihkulpon or Tobique First Nation. It's up in northern New Brunswick. We're about 15 minutes drive from the Maine border and an hour's drive from the Quebec border. We're stuck in that area. And our river system run that runs through our community, the Wolastoq opens up into the Bay of Fundy and then into the Gulf of Maine and of course, the Atlantic Ocean. We're fishers and hunters. That's our primary, that's always been what we've done traditionally. When I went through my schooling, I was always very strong in math, so I ended up doing a BSc, a Bachelor of Science at Dalhousie University, way, way back, and without any real direction. It was just like, because I just took it, because I was good at the math courses. But my first job I got, I received out of university, was working with that Canadian Hydrographic Service, doing ocean mapping. And I did that for 10 years. I worked all along the Atlantic seaboard, from big boats, little boats, shore parties, helicopters, etc. And then after that portion of my career, I did 10 years with Parks Canada. So I got to travel all over Canada. I spent a year up the Northwest Territories, visiting national parks and cultural sites. And the beauty of that was I was able to meet elders from all over North America with that job. But in 2012 I started working directly for First Nations chiefs in fisheries. And fisheries is really important in this region because of Supreme Court of Canada decisions which upheld our treaties of peace and friendship from the 1700s. So I continued in that role for six years, and then in 2018 I took on the role as the National Fisheries Director with the Assembly First Nations. I was their first national director of fisheries, and I was afforded the opportunity to work with fisheries issues all over Canada. I have a lot of strong relationships on the west coast because of this, a few relationships in the central areas, but those are delegated authorities to the provinces, and in 2021 I started just working independently on contracts. So I've done some work with the Food and Agriculture Organization. I've done some work with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, I'm part of some international NGO groups. But ultimately, everything. That I do really boils down to empowering Indigenous communities, either on a rights-based aspect or a science-based aspect in the ocean sector. But because Canada and the international community is now emphasizing the relationship and working and partnering with Indigenous communities, I get a lot of phone calls compared to some of my other colleagues that are working in the spaces. And I'm of the mindset that if I can't find, if I can't do the work, or if I can't figure out a way to make it happen, I'm going to find people that can do that work and make it happen.

Fawn Sharp (5:32): Thank you. Okay. That's my Quinault name. First of all, I just want to take this opportunity to thank, thank you, the Carbon to Sea Initiative is an incredible organization. I'm new to it, but I'm finding that when entities recognize the value of Indigenous peoples on the front end as there's a new and emerging opportunity, as opposed to an afterthought or the back end, it's quite significant. And so I just want to take a moment to acknowledge and thank you for inviting us into not only the space, but amplifying our voice with this podcast. It's so important that we're here. So much gratitude. Thank you. By way of background, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest during the height of the fishing wars. My grandparents fished for a living, and I grew up at the crack of dawn going out in a rickety fishing boat and with the hope and optimism that we would have some salmon. That was my upbringing, and that was during a very turbulent time of the treaty fishing wars in the Pacific Northwest. So I knew at eight years old what the words treaty abrogation meant, and I knew what it meant to our community, to tribes throughout the Pacific Northwest. And I aspired to want to someday grow up to become an attorney. And I ultimately did that. I left home quite young. I was 15 years old when I graduated from high school, went on to law school, came back, served my nation as a trial court judge and a tax judge for the state of Washington. When our president announced their retirement and elders talked to me about running for political office, I never held political office in my entire life, and it was actually something I never aspired to. I thought I've been trying to seek truth, justice, fairness, and that's completely at odds with politics and tribal politics. And so an elder said, Fawn, you're running to be a leader, not a politician, and a leader brings those virtues to Office, and sometimes you have to recognize people see things in you that you might not see in yourself. And so I ran, that was in 2006. I successfully won the presidency that year, and then 2009, ‘12, ‘15, ‘18,’ 21, and through that tenure of 18 years of tribal leadership, I emerged as president of the Affiliated Tribes ofNorthwest Indians, which then I had a seat on the National Congress American Indians board. I was the regional vice president, and then eventually I was elected as president of the National Congress of American Indians. And that's the national the oldest and largest organization in theUnited States, comprising the interests of 575 tribal nations all across the United States. And during that time, during the entire presidency, I was immediately confronted with the existential threat of climate change. Our salmon went from millions in the 50s and 60s down to 3000 the year I was elected. And I learned about ocean acidification. I learned about the warming ocean temperatures. I learned about melting glaciers. And it was quite evident that with all of the macro environmental issues confronting humanity, there's very little we can do about that, but those things that we can do something about, we need to pay attention. We need to be strategic. We need to elevate our issues and have partnerships. And during during the course of my presidency, I secured diplomatic credentials and joined the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, and brought together the United States with Indigenous leaders from all over the world, in Scotland and then in Sharm El Sheik at the various COPs. But all of that work, it was clear to me that unless we have resources, we're not going to be able to deploy or implement any of the visions. And so for the last two years, I've been working on ensuring that Indigenous nations, not only in the United States but around the world, have direct access to resources. Billions and trillions of dollars are being deployed, and Indigenous peoples have…we're on the outside of all of these systems. We're on the outside of the United Nations. We're on the outside of development banks, and we're relying almost entirely on NGOs to secure resources for us. And so when I looked at all the different sectors, this particular sector is one that offers a lot of promise. The value of MCR is what, $1 trillion, between now and 2050. It's an incredible value to this one sector, and one report that Carbon to Sea has commissioned, it's 200,000 jobs over the course of that. So a lot of jobs, a lot of opportunity. We're at the front end. So for all those reasons, I'm happy and honored to join Carbon to Sea.

Danny (10:11): And we're so happy to have you here. Francesca?

Francesca Hillery (10:15):  Yes, so I'm a member of the Round Valley Tribes in California. I grew up in California, close to the ocean, so I really developed a relationship with the ocean from early childhood, and it became a focus for me. In fact, I, like many people who didn't actually do it, I did consider doing oceanography at one point. I hink someone made a joke about that yesterday. But so I moved up to Washington State 22 years ago, and ended up finishing up my education there, and then went to work for a tribe and in the capacity of External Affairs and government relations, ultimately, and that was really about managing relationships. And a lot of those relationships were either with state or federal agencies. But in addition to that, they were local farmers who there were, there were many projects that we brought the tribe, brought in
different partners, one of which was an early energy project, being a bio digester that was built about 15 years ago, and so as far as fish and farms and how to bring solutions
to both communities, it was a great project because it brought dairy farmers together with the tribe. They have this mutual bio digester, and now they are putting a carbon capture component on it, so it's the next generation. But anyway, when I worked for the tribe, one of my mentors was Terry Williams, who has passed away now, but he was the treaty rights director for the Tulalip tribes, very involved in salmon recovery over generations in the Puget Sound. Just a lot of leadership roles that many people recognize, including Fawn. So one of the questions that really came up towards the end of his life was, because of ocean acidification and how it was affecting the sound, and therefore tribal fisheries and shell fisheries, what can we do about this? And that eventually led to our interest in the possibility of OAE being, it does look like it could possibly be one of the best solutions. So I started my own consulting business, and then ended up going to work for Global Ocean Health, and along with Terry, before he passed away, we launched a program and Fawn,  we were all together, we launched a program called Building Tribal Leadership and Carbon Removal at the time. After Terry passed, we changed that, and now it's called Partnerships for Tribal Carbon Solutions. In that capacity, Fawn, the Whitener Group in Washington State, and a few others. we launched the Indigenous Greenhouse Gas Removal Commission, which I have just finally learned to say after a couple years and that we are so excited about this commission. We have three founding tribes, the Snoqualmie Tribe of Washington State, Squaxin Island of Washington State, and the Tunica-Biloxi of Louisiana. So we are really looking forward to diving in and doing the work together as tribes. And it's not simply about carbon removal, it's also about other greenhouse gasses we wanted to give ourselves the room to grow. Methane is a huge problem affecting Indian country. So, yeah, that is how I ended up in this work. And you know, one of the projects that I'm really proud of that we're just about to launch is along with a couple partners, the Carbon Business Council, as well as the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal, with Wil Burns, right? We have put together a report to the tribes on carbon removal, and so that will be coming out in a few weeks for tribes to consider carbon removal, and hope to really kind of introduce that to Native American media and whatnot, so we can start getting the word out further.

Anna (14:45): Yeah, thank you so much for these introductions. It's truly a pleasure to have you all here. I want to take a quick step back before diving into the depths of your work. I'm from, from Germany, and it's a country where Indigenous partnerships is not really a consideration we necessarily grow up with. So I'm certainly on a learning curve in this regard. And Fawn, I'm curious, you’ve held a number of international positions, as you mentioned. For our international listeners who might not be from a place where, as I said, this is not necessarily always a consideration, how do you usually explain Indigenous rights and Indigenous knowledge and the importance of integrating it?

Fawn (15:29): Yes, excellent question. Thank you. So when I talk to those who have very little to no experience in working with Indigenous communities, one of the first things I mention is we are place based. We are from ancestral lands and territories since the beginning of time, since time immemorial and throughout the generations, we've received ancestral knowledge and teachings that have been passed down. We're very foundationally interconnected with all things living. Chief Seattle, from my part of the world, had a very famous saying that all things are connected, and what we do to the earth, we do to ourselves. And so that really puts in a focused perspective that from an Indigenous place, Indigenous peoples have just this knowledge that is ancient. It's proven. We also have prophecies where our ancestors have foretold of days of reckoning, like what we're in right now, and they predicted years ago, generations ago, that the world is just not sustainable. It's in a trajectory in which humanity is dominant. We exploit nature for profit. We maximize profit and it's on a pathway and a trajectory that simply isn't sustainable. And those prophecies also recognize, at some point, the world was going to recognize the value of Indigenous peoples to bring us back into balance. And so when you look at the multiple, what I call apocalyptic challenges, just in our lifetime, whether it's a global pandemic, the climate crisis, all of these things are symptoms of a much deeper imbalance. It didn't just begin with a pandemic or, a lifetime ago. These are imbalances that began centuries ago when humanity became disconnected from each other, from the natural world, from our Creator, and so that's a very important thing that I really try to convey to people that are new to working with Indigenous communities, because it's so important. And then yesterday, we were asked a series of questions in our breakout about, what do we, who is at the center of our work? We had all these different circles and who is at the center? And my answer to that question was, our Creator is at the center, because we recognize that these challenges that we're confronting, it's humanly impossible to figure out, and our ancestors similarly, relied on ancestral knowledge and teachings, relied on the strength, wisdom and courage from our Creator, and approach these issues with all humility, knowing that as human beings, we just can't solve these and we have to work in a good way. And when I say work in a good way, that means we have to be aligned. We have to be healthy, mentally, physically, spiritually. We have to honor and respect all things living, including potential strategic partners. And we know that the world is conflicted. There's a lot of noise and distraction. And so we're about engaging with partners who can rise above a burning political landscape, a burning environmental landscape that is truly centered on looking seven generations out. And so those are the type of messages I really try to convey to individuals that we're welcoming. We bring knowledge that's indispensable. We also have political structure. We have multilateral relationships directly with the United States and with other countries. So we're in global political space, a global economic space. And the world is starting to understand they need us more than we need them at this point.

Anna (19:03): It's a very inspiring reflection, I think. And you mentioned the conversations you had yesterday, as we mentioned up top, we're gathering at the end of our convening. We had three days of intense conversations, presentations, presentations, etc. Ken, Francesca, I'm curious what kind of reflections you might have on the event, and also what you heard from the other First Nation representatives that were there, and their
perspectives and reflections on the convening.

Francesca (19:30): Sure. Well, first of all, you know, I just want to say how honored I am and we are, to actually be in Canada amongst First Nations peoples, which we share so much in common, with which I have personally learned working in the Puget Sound and the Salish Sea, because there's so many common connections between the Coast Salish and some of the threats that they face, whether it's oil pipelines and increased tanker traffic, or they're just all kinds of issues that we really need to learn from each other. And so I'm it's been wonderful to hear also just how complex the fisheries management is, it sounds to me, amongst the First Nations here on this side of Canada. So that was very inspiring to to understand how built out this, this system of management is. So that was nice.

Ken (20:34): I want to make a couple comments about the rights-based stuff and the Indigenous knowledge stuff. A lot of people don't really understand what rights for Indigenous peoples is really all about. Our birthright is our inherent rights to the lands of waters from our ancestors and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the best document, although it's not perfect, it's the best document that's out there that can help guide nation states to understand that we have these rights. We are also treating nations. And in order to sign treaties, you have to be recognized as a nation. Our treaties go back to the 1700s, they were the peace and friendship treaties. The first one was signed, was established in 1725 and was ratified in 1726, so this is like 300 years of this official relationship. And I will never say treaty rights. I will say treaty protected rights. Because what it does, it protects some of our inherent rights that are written in the treaties, but all the inherent rights are still there, and that's important, because in Canada, we have treaties going across the country, but most of the nations in the West Coast, in British Columbia, don't have treaties, but they still enjoy those inherent rights. So that's up to them, their governments out there to negotiate that with the province and with the federal government. With respect to Indigenous knowledge, or even the term traditional knowledge, native people didn't come up with that terminology. Somebody else was recognizing something that was happening and coined those terms. And I've even gone to elders and said, Hey, can you share some of your Indigenous knowledge? And they've looked at me, I don't have any of that. I don't know what that is, but then they'll go and show me how they pick sweetgrass or how they spear eels. And what I've done over the years, I've worked with others on this, we actually now use the terminology Indigenous knowledge system. We want people to understand that it's an actual knowledge system, that it's a different kind of science paradigm, if you will, and it's as important to know how you do things and why you do things, rather than just specifically the knowledge. Because what I'm finding internationally is and nationally is that scientists are coming to the Indigenous communities now, because they recognize there's some kind of knowledge base there that they don't understand, but with the approach that they want to go in and extract the knowledge to plug up the holes in their scientific paradigms. But that doesn't work, because if you understand the context, that the knowledge is localized, that it comes from the culture, and that there's a value system embedded throughout all of that, then it's not going to work. So one of the concepts that was developed here on the east coast by a friend of mine is an elder, Albert Marshall, and his late wife, Murdena Marshall, was this concept of two-eyed seeing. And the simplicity of it, the beauty of it is that right off the bat, people kind of recognize that, okay, two-eyed seeing, we have our scientific methodology and our Indigenous methodology, and we can work on these both things in parallel and hopefully arrive at the same point. The thing that Albert has told me, and when I try to teach people now, is that it's not two separate processes working in parallel, because what if they disagree at the end? Are you going to value one system over another? The work has to be at the beginning, the integrative part. So you're not going to catch a ball covering one hand like this, or one eye like this, because you don't have the depth. There was that area where there's going to be overlap, is there going to be conflict in there, and that's where most of the work has to be done, up front to develop new methodologies, where the innovation will take place. Because working with the two eyes together, that's where you get the depth. So we're trying to, like, demystify that, and let also people understand that, working with Indigenous peoples and communities,  we are very fortunate to have our elders, but we also have our scientists, and even when we so purposely by using the terminology Indigenous knowledge system that almost gives people permission to understand that we can use GIS systems, satellite imagery, drones, fish labs, you know, all of these other kinds of tools that it's needed in the marine scientific field, as well as working with our elders and that traditional knowledge and traditional values. So, I'm trying to help people understand that. And we purposely, for our Indigenous delegation to Carbon and Sea, had brought in our scientists in there, so people can understand that. Yeah, we have elders. Our elders are very humble, but we have scientists as well that are very much on par with the other scientific community, and some of them have specializations, but they're working on community priorities. So I just wanted to make sure that the listeners can sort of understand that a little bit better.

Danny (25:30): So, yesterday's workshop was a lot about meaningful partnerships with so much to offer. I'm just curious, from the conversations yesterday, as well as for all of your work, what do meaningful partnerships look like, and what do you think the steps are to getting us there?

Fawn (25:46):  So I think it's important, and I want to continue. I love having conversations with other Indigenous peoples around the world. No matter where we're from, there's not a single degree of separation of thought. And I just want to start foundationally building on Ken's comments about the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, that those are inherent rights, and so when it when it comes to government to government relationships and in partnerships and consultation, etc, I think it's important to really understand and recognize that we hope to come to conversations in equity, and when we're talking about political equity, government to government, that means we're at the table in equal standing. Too often others, and it was brought out in our session yesterday, they have a predetermined idea, and they need to consult with us. And it's an administrative exercise where they just check the box and they're
going to tell us what they're going to do, and want to get us on board. Well, if there's a
relationship in which equity is acknowledged and recognized, it's respect, it's understanding that we have our own set of knowledge and systems and culture and place and community, and we want to come to the table and share that knowledge. And so when you engage with Indigenous peoples, it's important to understand that there is that whole side of a partnership and a relationship that's important. The other thing that we highlighted was it's really important to have an understanding of basic protocols and how we relate and how we one, open up a partnership, build and grow that relationship, because by doing that, it acknowledges and recognizes that it's not a one-size-fits-all. There's over one thousand First Nations and tribal nations throughout Canada and the United States. And we're all different. We all have different languages. Some want a little more formalistic relationship. It was brought out. They might start with an NDA that their attorneys have presented. Others that might start with having, you know, breaking bread and opening up a conversation, without even getting into policy, but just formalizing those relationships. So it's important to understand that we all have a different
place, but we should have an understanding of protocols. Oftentimes, we'll start working on an issue and it's a result of conflict, so we have to come together. So it's important to really build out expectations and respect and building common agendas without one entity. And that's the other part of these relationships that we really try to prepare for, if there isn't political equity, and one partner comes in and takes unilateral action, and then it results in litigation and lawsuits, and then we're not talking at all, and that's been a long storied history of tribal relations. They're defined by lawsuits, and they're defined by parameters and federal cases. And it's so much easier just to sit down and talk and make the investment of time to get to know us, the investment of time to find our common interest, the investment of time to find common protocols and, and I think those that are successful in doing it, we it's an accelerant. We can really accelerate and build and grow, and then you have momentum, and then you it flourishes into other areas. And, and I've just found over the years, when those who acknowledge that and respect it, they become like not only lifelong partners, but friends, colleagues, allies and and let's face it, the issues we're confronting in this era, we need to have as much galvanized friendships and opportunity to work together. And so those are some of the basic things that came out of yesterday's session, and we are always here to learn. And I've not met an Indigenous person that's not accepted an invitation and invite to come into a circle and
share knowledge and wisdom, because we know it. We don't own it. We know this is
knowledge that we receive by inheritance, and it's knowledge that must be shared with others, and it must be shared in order for us to help navigate and confront the challenges facing not just Indigenous peoples, but all of humanity.

Francesca (29:54): I think going off of both what Fawn and Ken have been talking about in regards to Indigenous knowledge and sovereignty and the position of Indigenous people.I think we've been thinking through a lot of in the in the world of carbon removal partnerships between what would it look like for tribes or First Nations to partner with some of these industry partners right now, and because we've been in research and development for the last X amount of years. I thought it made a lot of sense, especially working in Washington state with the treaty tribes who are tasked with the co-management of salmon and habitat. They therefore have fairly large science departments. So one potential partnership model is doing research together with both tribal scientists and industry scientists, academic scientists, to to really come together and see if some of
these carbon removal schemas are going to work on the ground or in the water. So in regards simply to carbon removal and the oceans, I think that the partnerships between tribes now and in the future, and as as Fawn has said, you know, if this is going to, we hope, turn around, turn into a trillion dollar industry by the year 2050, which I hope it does. Because I think we need all of the incentives possible, in order to bring some balance to our climate crisis, and unfortunately, with a lot of folks, it takes those types of financial incentives. There's a real question, I think, amongst some Indigenous communities about the commodification of nature and kind of
pushing back on that idea. And unfortunately, maybe this is just because I grew up in California and Silicon Valley came up there, but I really grew up thinking that innovation is good and that it can be an answer and I also believe that tribes can be very
innovative. So it's not outside of our experience.

Danny (32:30): What's at risk? So  we're developing this field of ocean based carbon removal, OAE in particular, and right now we have the ability to paint its future. And so if we were creating this future, like what's at risk, if the field of OAE was developed without consulting, incorporating, collaborating with Indigenous knowledge systems, what would that future look
like?

Ken (32:56):  Well, first of all we'd have to see you in court. But the thing, the reason why it's really important to work with Indigenous communities is because, literally, the blood of our ancestors, our DNA, are within the soils and waters of our traditional territories, like we have tens of thousands of years of uninterrupted access, lifestyles and everything else that allowed us to thrive. Without working with our approaches, the people don't understand how things are going to impact. My concern in this, in this mCDR field, or OAE field, is that there's a tendency to try to develop the winning solution. Which methodology is going to be the one that we can roll out at a global scale. There's a lot of talk about upscaling. I think that talk about upscaling is far too premature, and that when you work with local communities who know the waters, they know the wildlife, they know the activities of the fish, they if you work with those local communities, they can help develop monitoring plans to figure out what needs to be monitored, where things should be monitored, the time of year that things need to be monitored, who should be included in those monitoring plans, monitoring plans which could include things such as bears, for example, which is not a marine species, but very much relies on fish like we do. I think that's where the innovation can take place, and that will provide that long term stability and approach to have the right approaches in those local environments. If we don't do that, then I feel as though that the solution that this entire field is trying to create, it might solve the the acidity problem in the ocean sector, but it's going to cause other problems that is going to have a large negative impact on us in the future, I would love to see a change in the approach, not to try to fix the ocean and try to make it less acidic for the sake of carbon, but rather to improve habitat for some of our relatives in the marine world, like fish, which will provide the carbon benefit. And if we start from that perspective, and there, there are some examples where that's happened, like Carbon Run is an example that has done that. I think that we'll have a long term sustainability and durability into like what we're trying to do and make the planet more habitable for us as humans.

Francesca (35:26): I just really believe that we should lead as tribes with restoration first, and tribes do anyway. I think a lot about forests and fish. So in the forestry sector, we also have super fires now, and so the more the better, and the more wide scale we do restoration, the more that we protect those habitats, and therefore ourselves.

Anna (35:50): And I mean, it's particularly in a potential benefit or reality, because most OAE projects, if not all OAE projects right now are taking place in coastal waters, and that is the actual, feasible solution right now. And I find it quite fascinating what you described, with respect to the past knowledge about the species that are in waters, the seasonality of waters. I'm spending most of my time thinking about the monitoring of OAE and the question of, how long should our baseline monitoring be? Which parameters should we measure? We approach it with the academic community that perhaps is not in contact enough with Indigenous knowledge systems. The go-to approach is to say, Well, let's think about how long we have to monitor this to understand at which time of year the pH goes up or the pH goes down, instead of as you
describe, valuing and incorporating something by centuries of observations. So it's a
great example.

Fawn (36:53): I would add too. In my response to your question, Danny, I think the thing that would miss there is sort of this emerging nature, valuing nature. And throughout our sessions yesterday, we learned, I mean, we had a finance presentation and the amount of private sector investment that's going into this, as well as public and philanthropic, the private sector investment, it was off the charts. I mean, it was a massive amount of private investment in these innovative opportunities. And what we're finding is to the point that Francesca raised, the whole world is trying to put a price tag on nature. They're trying to value nature and commodify nature and and that's almost the totality of the work that I'm doing now at the World Economic Forum is saying that these systems and this approach is just inherently incongruent with our value system. You can't take nature and mainstream it into the status quo finance systems, because they are by design, intended to maximize profit at the expense of nature, at the expense of humanity, at the expense of the planet. And so just as you're seeing science innovation around the environment, you're seeing an entire finance ecosystem of the private sector that knows that investments have to be made. JP Morgan issued a report last month in April, and it talked about tipping points, that there are these black swans where there's low probability of an event, but if that event happens, it's massive financial destruction. And so the world of finance is trying to figure out how to stabilize these global investments by taking our values into a system that, by design, is just never going to work. And so I would venture to say the stabilizing factor for global finance systems are foundational principles of right relationship with nature and in learning that Indigenous peoples are reimagining a world of investment strategies where we can bring together public, private, philanthropic, blended capital at scale to to meet the challenges, but not only have an ability to create direct access for Indigenous peoples who've been left out of these systems, but the investment strategies that can be deployed directly into solutions that are proven through centuries, and not only deploying and creating access, but measuring on the back end, when we have guardians who are out collecting data and streams, and we're able to report in real time. I went out to Carbon Run as part of and I want to thank all of you for that experience. They have monitoring systems that are solar powered. They feed up to a satellite, and you could get the data real time. And I'm finding there's a hunger and an appetite from the private sector. They've deployed a lot of capital, but there's a lot of greenwashing and window dressing and so there is this sense that we want proven results, and we have an ability to create real time, proven results. And we're not just new to this party. We've been doing this for centuries, and we're not innovative pop ups where you don't know, and I hear that from global investors all the time. We need entities that have longevity, that have a proven track record, and Indigenous peoples you could take what we know to the bank
and not only produce return on a healthy environment, but healthy relationships with each other and respect for all things living and so I think without Indigenous peoples in the conversation, we would continue down a pathway in which we're trying to bring nature into this mainstream system that is broken and it's failing humanity. It's failing the planet. It's the financial system itself is failing, and so Indigenous peoples are reimagining an entire different pathway where we're wanting thriving people in a thriving planet and in entire ecosystems. And not simply one asset class of you know, carbon credits or riparian credits. We see these as healthy living, breathing ecosystems in which the investment strategy should all follow, like the totality of that. I mean, imagine if investment strategies actually followed ecological thresholds and actually serve to help humanity and the planet survive. I mean, it's very possible, and these are systems that we've had for centuries. So it's not just social and political innovation and things that we're doing and we're standing on the shoulders of ancestors, but in this whole world of finance as global resources are trying to be deployed in ways that are actually going to be effective and work,

Ken (41:25): And I will say,  just linking the finance thing back to the Indigenous knowledge systems things. So there's still a bit of this sort of quaint notion of the noble savage within the greater society, right? And yes, having tea with elders is a privilege, and you can learn a lot. However, that's not the only way to get at that Indigenous knowledge systems. And I used to advocate towards supporting our communities, develop programs for our communities, but I'm starting to change the way that I present this now, and I say, invest in our communities. Invest in our Indigenous knowledge systems, invest in our elders, because it's great to be partners on somebody else's project. but, most of the finances that come from major organizations, and even carbon to sea groups like philanthropy groups, they go through institutions, or they go through governments, or they go through businesses. But if we have allowed direct access to capital for Indigenous communities, then you also have Indigenous led endeavors where they are in control of the partnerships, choosing their partners, and instead of working on somebody else's problem through partnerships, they can focus on the priorities there. So I'm hoping we're going to start changing that mentality and start pushing in that direction to have access to capitals because of all the things that have happened to our
communities over, I guess, the last five centuries, the fact that we're still here, that we still
have culture intact, that we still have language intact, and that whole value system that's
under that shows the resilience of our communities, and there's a resurgence than that. So, I want to see that continue on and start to inform the greater greater good,

Anna (43:08): Building on that, Indigenous governments in the US and Canada have quite a few issues to reckon with at the moment, not just OAE or ocean based carbon removal.
How would you advise leaders right now on whether they should be, or why they should be, and how they should be prioritizing OAE research and development?

Ken (43:29): Well, I had debated honestly with a few close colleagues over the past few years about whether or not I even want to be part of this world, part of this ecosystem in OAE, because I’d just seen it as, let's create something with science, and let's fix the ocean, not recognizing that the ocean is actually living being that has a spirit that we have a relationship with and that we really should work in the best interest of the oceans. But we had concluded that, well, this is going to happen anyway. And instead of, you know, community members seeing a ship go by with some alkali being dumped behind, and then wondering what's going on out there, we know that we have to work internally to try to influence the system so that we can bring resources into the community, so that they can be informed. As far as how they should prioritize it, the priority is going to be on the health of the ocean. So, if there's different kinds of activities and levers and access to capital that can help advance the science from the communities or the Indigenous knowledge system, then that is something that I'm going to strongly advocate for. I know that the innovation in our communities has always been there. The problem has been lack of resources, but that's starting to change very slowly, and even the conversation within the communities is the acumen around financing and stuff like that. That financial literacy is starting to change. And it's not chasing the funds, per se. It's really about
trying to get back to self determination and having our rightful place as to governing, if you will, the lands and territories so that it can be done in the long term, rather than trying to maximize value for shareholders.

Fawn (45:11): I guess I would add to that. I mean, we did a similar exercise: Should we get into carbon removal? And for me, I guess the point where I became convinced that I needed to be in this area was reviewing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that we're not going to get to target just by reducing emissions, we have to capture and store emissions. And so that became a point in my public life when I thought, we really need to figure this out. And I think Indigenous people stand in a position where we can rely on centuries of knowledge and wisdom, but given our ability to form commercial enterprises, to form multilateral relationships, to engage in our own independent sovereign finance systems. We have an ability to attract innovation that is otherwise wouldn't come to the United States, or that you have to have an act of Congress to create a regulatory framework in which to try something innovative. Tribal nations have this long history of seeing opportunities building a regulatory framework and landscape, exercising our inherent sovereign powers to effectively preempt others from that space and do it in an accelerated way. In my first term, I back in 2008 I saw carbon sequestration as a possible way of managing a landscape in which we had over 220,000 forested lands in the Pacific Northwest and the globe. Market was at the time, trading at $32 a metric ton, the voluntary domestic market in the United States through the Chicago Climate Exchange. There was an exchange in California when in New England was at $2 to $3 a metric ton. And I found that domestic companies in the US could not access those global markets because the US was not a signatory to Kyoto,notwithstanding that, a tribal nation could enter into those markets. And so we went to Poznań in Poland armed with a resolution in which we brought together five tribal nations in the United States and two Canadian First Nations. Our collective geographical footprint was larger than some European countries. So we can move up the stream. And so I think those are advantages and opportunities that Indigenous peoples stand in this, this unique position of standing on centuries of knowledge and wisdom, but also have an ability, by exercising our sovereign strength and muscle to create landscapes, to pioneer some of these new and emerging opportunities in ways that's aligned with our values. With our value system that honors science. We put science. It's not a political calculus that factors into our decision making. Unlike Congress or in other political bodies, we're able to actually listen to science, and that's at the forefront of what we do.Science is so important to how we govern. And so those are some of the opportunities and advantages that I see, and building on Ken's point. But those are things that were in my mind as to, yes, we need to be in this sector, and yes, we need to not only help influence it, because if we don't, it's going to continue with, with or without us. But boy, is there an opportunity to step into this area and and bring our knowledge and lead, guide and influence and work collectively for a common solution that a bright future that we all see when we focus on that North Star for all of humanity.

Danny (48:36): I also want to recognize that Indigenous peoples are often on the front lines of climate change, and especially in the US, we tend to talk about climate change in a very theoretical or we debate whether it's happening, but it is happening. And I would just be curious with Quinault in particular, you're already feeling and making a lot of modifications because of climate change, and I'm just curious if you could describe some of that.

Fawn (49:00): Yes, absolutely. So, as I mentioned, in my first year in office, back in 2006, I was immediately confronted with the existential threat of climate change, and took a helicopter flight, saw the melting glacier. I've stood on the beaches with two and a half miles of dead marine life due to oxygen depletion, and the place where my ancestors signed our treaty is now underwater due to sea level rise. We're having to move two villages to higher ground. It's a $500 million project. We're not going to realize that out of the United States Congress, which is one of the reasons I'm doing this work to secure the resources. And so people might think that Indigenous peoples are on the front lines. We're weak, we're vulnerable. We have no resources. But to the contrary, because we've gone through that, we're strong, we're resilient. We have this knowledge in our DNA. And you know the other point I make, the World Economic Forum did a report three years ago that 5% of the population, Indigenous peoples, govern 80% of the biodiversity that that's
left. And I often flip that to say we're outperforming everyone else by 400% we don't have
direct access to finance, we don't have direct access to capital, we don't have direct access to political systems like the United Nations, but we do have direct access to nature, and we do have relationships. So our vault is in nature, and our vault is thriving, and has been thriving in these places. You could just look at a map of Canada or the US, you could clearly identify where Indigenous territories are, because they're the green, healthy places and places that have been stewarded since time immemorial. And so yes, we are on the front lines of climate change. Yes, we are feeling the impacts. Yes, we're disproportionately impacted. Yes, we don't have access to resources, but we are managing, and we are continuing to do everything that's been inherited, and we're continuing to thrive, both as human beings, but in right relationship with
the nature, right relationship with our Creator, and that's why we're still here, thousands of years later, in some of the most powerful countries on the planet, tried to kill us, annihilate us, murder our children, put us in boarding schools, take away our language. There's a reason why they were after that is because they see the value of where we are in that knowledge and systems and survival and everything that's in our DNA is indispensable to solving this for all of humanity.

Ken (51:22):  Can I make just one more comment about the financing part of it? So we're in Mi'kma'ki, right? The traditional ancestral lands of Mi'kmaq people. The treaties of peace and friendship from the 1700s because there's a chain of them; there was from 1725, 1749, 1752, 1760, 61, 1778 and 1790. Canada only recognizes two of those because Canada's Supreme Court was forced to recognize them, 1752, 1761, and it's it's fine for Canada to recognize that, and it's fine for Canada to make laws for Canadian citizens. But we have our own laws. We have our own governance systems, and we have a really difficult time having Canada recognize it, even though Canada's courts have told Canada's government to recognize these things. But when we but none of these treaties were about territory, they were literally peace and friendship treaties, because the French and the English brought their wars to our shores, and the British realized they can't fight native people and the French at the same time, so they made peace and friendship treaties with our ancestors so they could put more of their resources to their war with the French. And it was around that period that led to the deportation of the Acadians. And it was, funnily enough, the other day when King Charles met with the president at the White House, he made a comment about that, because President Trump made this comment, well, if
it wasn't for the United States, you'd all be speaking German. Well, the king says, well, if it
wasn't for us, you'd all be speaking French, right? But this thing about unceded territory, it's not just a nice thing to say at the beginning of an event. And I appreciate people that do that, but that actually has a meaning. So if this is unceded territory, then why is it that all this resource extraction, including all the financing around mCDR, is going to other entities, but not coming back to our communities. It's I don't know if we have to emphasize Impact Benefit Agreements or resource revenue sharing or whatever we need to do, but that financing needs to come back to the community so we can finance our groups, for our governance systems, our science systems, our education systems to bring some of our young people into some of these diverse fields. And I know for a group that we had here at Carbon to Sea that's not really their world, not really their thinking, but more and more, we have to just try to emphasize that. It's not trying to take away from others, but it's like trying to find equitable equitability, I guess, into that revenue generation. Because there are, there are so many people here in North America that have built intergenerational wealth off our resources, while we have suffered from
intergenerational poverty. That's solely starting to change, and we've had to use the American and the Canadian courts to prove to them to their systems that this is inequitable.

Anna (54:07): I would love to keep talking with all three of you for much longer. We we do have to close out, and I want to give each of you an opportunity to also manifest a bit where ideally we would like to be in a year from now. I i recall yesterday, one of the members of your of your delegation, stood up in our sort of closing reflections and mentioned it is good that, you know, we have had this delegation here, and we've seen more representation and integration of the tribal communities. But next time, you know, it would also be nice if Carbon to Sea recognized that there is Indigenous science actually on stage, and so that is for sure, something that I think that we take away and hope to integrate in a year from now. And I'm wondering if each of you has has reflections and thoughts of, yeah, what, what needs to happen in this next year?

Fawn (54:53): Okay, so for me, it's hard to really think about where the world might be a year from now, when you think where we were just a year ago, and how the world is so changed. And while there's a lot of uncertainty and, you know, confusion and things about what's happening in the world today, I think there are some things that are certain, and the things that are certain are our teachings and what Indigenous peoples bring to the table. And so when I think about a year from now, I would think that the relationship that we've developed will continue in between the annual meetings. I think we have to be dynamic in reading, you know, the politics, the policy front. There's a lot of headwinds there, I think, certainly on the investment and finance science, the totality of the strategic direction of Carbon to Sea I feel welcomed in that place. I mean, I've had conversations, what are we going to do multilaterally at this upcoming COP? There's a place there for Indigenous voices. What are we going to do as investment strategies start to emerge, as science starts to emerge and innovation. So, I'm looking forward to an incredible year ahead, with or without all of the political things going on, but relying on what we do know the relationships we're building. I see a stronger relationship. I see a more a broader relationship. I see a collective vision and direction. And to me, it's all inspiring. And so I'm just happy to be here, and I look forward to 2026-27.

Francesca  (56:24): Great. I do think that a year from now, along with the help of Ken and Fawn, that we really do see an emergence and understanding of tribal scientists, scientists who are working for tribes as either part of that nation or an employee. We tend to have very long term employees working for fisheries, for tribes, and I think that says something about that environment. So I do think that the growth of that participation from tribal science is going to be key to keeping the sector going. And also, you know, helping to slow down in areas, as Ken has alluded to, that maybe we shouldn't be moving so fast that we need to take the time to do the science. That does not mean that we should slow down in decarbonization or meeting our net zero goals. It's very It's terrifying to think that, you know, it's no longer about 1.5 it's about 2.0 now and what? Especially as a Californian, I'm particularly terrified because of fires and because of drought. And so, you know, we're looking at all kinds of different solutions outside of OAE or or the oceans. We're looking at de-sal and what that what is going to take to secure water over time. And so, yeah. Yeah, I I look forward to continuing to grow our tribal expertise
in this area.

Ken (58:12): So I'm not 100% familiar with the whole philanthropy world or how Carbon to Sea supports different groups. I know that they support research and they support startups. In a year from now, I would love it if they could start supporting Indigenous science, Indigenous communities directly, that they could support social science, because I think no matter what we do here, it's going to affect people as well. I think some work in that and more work on the ecology, and specifically on the health of fish habitats. I think if, if we can diversify those kind of supports, it would help complement the physical science that we see here, which is advancing really, really well. And if we can do that, and I think we'll have more people that are, I guess, a bit more hopeful at a positive future, rather than just trying to react to the climate crisis that we find ourselves in.

Danny (59:06): I would encourage everyone to keep an eye on Carbon to Sea. I think that we have some announcements coming up soon and in the next year that I hope that we can help address some of these. But today, I just want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will be leaving this table with so much more knowledge and sharing, and I just really appreciate that you've shared that with us and with all of our listeners. So thank you.

Anna (59:32):
And we thank our listeners as always.

If you enjoyed this episode, leave a comment or a review and share this episode. If you want to suggest a topic for a future episode, feel free to reach out to us on LinkedIn or through our email plansea@carbontosea.org and with that, we say thank you and hear you next time.