Finding Common Ground: Communicating Across Borders to Restore the Salish Sea

Puyallup Tribe's Chief Leschi Schools, Tulalip Tribes, and students and professors at the University of Washington are collaborating through participatory digital storytelling centered around Salish Sea restoration. The goals include intercultural education exchange across multiple disciplines leading to a balanced collaboration between communities that will inform long term policy. Students rarely learn Washington State treaty rights yet Tribes are at the forefront of Salish Sea protection. The results are the erasure of Indigenous knowledge, wisdom, and ways of knowing. Non-indigenous students are learning how to communicate with Tribes by establishing and maintaining trusting relationships in a respectful manner while also informing the public of treaty rights. Digital storytelling as an education platform creates visibility to the ongoing issues in the Salish Sea, and illuminates the Tribes' ongoing protection of their treaty rights and sustainability efforts. Collaborative efforts between the educational institutions, Tribes, and students brings equity and diversity to environmental justice. Seven digital stories and short videos explore TransMountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX) social and ecological impacts, Puyallup resistance to a fracked gas storage facility, Coast Salish treaty rights, Tulalip-led estuary restoration and salmon recovery, means to decolonizing the UW, and Indigenous allyship principles and best practices. Diverse audiences have viewed these digital stories through online and in-person viewing events. Pre and post viewing event surveys demonstrate that digital stories have raised awareness of treaty rights, Coast Salish leadership, and means to decolonize knowledge creation in K-12 and higher education institutions. By learning tribal epistemologies, understanding tribal sovereignty, and utilizing intercultural communications there can be a better path to long term restoration. We invite you to collaborate with us as we re-engage our practices, rethink our constructs, and reimagine education with the Salish Sea community. Digital story examples include; Recovering the Salish Sea: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/ce03f174417a44c5bb335ce2b749c60a Social Movements & Allyship Best Practices: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/3466ffd3749a4879b591dc8e06f41ab7