Center for Sustainable Environments (CSE)
PO Box 5765
Flagstaff, AZ
86011-5765
Phone: 928-523-0637
Fax: 928-523-8223
E-Mail: Heather.Farley@nau.edu
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On World Oceans Day at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Dr. Sylvia Earle of Conservation International and Philipe Costeau of the EarthEcho Institute presented a special award to Seri Indian youth involved in sea turtle conservation in the Gulf of California. The same day, the Seri youth, along with Dr.s Laurie Monti and Gary Nabhan, presented their strategy for community involvement in coastal and marine conservation to World Wildlife Fund senior staff, and to other prominent NGOs.
This recognition and other awards presented in Mexico over the last year and a half are the fruits of a long-term effort by the Center to train Seri "para-ecologists" to professionally take over much of the endangered species recovery, sustainable harvesting assessment and habitat restoration with their arid, seaside homelands. Two Seri were also featured with Nabhan and Monti at an international sustainable seafood event in Genova, Italy, "Slow Fish," where they promoted only the species sustainably harvested by artesanal fishing techniques. In addition, Nabhan's article, "Sea and Sand" on sustainable harvests of the Seri was featured in the Tenth Anniversary Special Issue of Slow magazine, and Monti has generated a Slow Food Presidium for fire-roasted mesquitre to benefit the Seri. Nabhan and Monti accompanied three Seri youth – Erika Molina, Mayra Estrella and Fernando Morales – to accept the award on behalf their group, Grupo Tortuguero Comcaac, a coalition of Seri Indian youth working to combine traditional ecological knowledge with Western science to protect these reptiles and the cultural practices associate with them. The presentations in Washington also featured the tri-lingual film, Songs of Survival: The Seri Indians and Sea Turtle Protection in the Sea of Cortes, produced by Monti and Flagstsaff cinematographer Peter Blystone. Dozens of other scientists and conservationists have been brought into the service of the Seri community, most notably Timothy Dykman and Dr. Jay Nichols of Ocean Revolution, and Rob Garrison of the Indigenous Aquaculture Network. The Overbrook Foundation, Packard Foundation, Haury Fund and Christensen Fund have offered continuing support for these efforts. The Seri projects have now become models for how other indigenous communities can both protect animals and plants which serve as their "cultural keystone species" as green sea turtles are for the Seri, and at the same time offer income to the community that replaces more extractive harvests. The Seri and the government of Fiji were both honored on World Oceans Day in front of hundreds of conservation advocates, congressmen and government officials in Washington D.C., but subsequent articles and film viewings have inspire tens of thousands of additional people. The Seri involvement in leatherback sea turtle conservation is also the culminating story in the new book by MacArthur Award-winning nature writer Carl Safina, Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur (Henry Holt, 2006). Seri sustainably-harvested products are now being eaten in leading restuarants across the U.S., including the Turquoise Room at La Posada, and the Smithsonian Museum of American Indian's Mitsitam Cafe. The income from these sales of these products is critical to the well-being of the 900 Seri living in two coastal villages, which were recently hit with a devastating hurricane that has damaged all roads and ports in their region (see aerial photo at top of page).
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Northern Arizona University, South San Francisco Street, Flagstaff, Arizona 86011
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