Trust obligation: Federal funding cuts threaten treaty rights

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Tribes in Western Washington are already seeing the impacts of presidential executive orders on funding that supports the management of treaty-reserved resources and the region’s robust economy.

These funding cuts, coupled with mass layoffs of the federal scientists we work with to manage and protect our treaty resources, are contrary to the federal government’s trustee obligation to implement the treaties we signed in the 1850s, reserving the right to fish, hunt and gather in our traditional areas.

Our treaty rights have been upheld twice by the U.S. Supreme Court and are protected as property rights under the Fifth Amendment.

Harvest Management: Planning annual fishing seasons is challenging enough as tribal and state co-managers must divide diminishing numbers of harvestable salmon. This year was even more difficult because hundreds of jobs were eliminated at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Those who remained were further constrained by budget cuts.

So far, NOAA has received only half the annual funding it needs to implement ocean sampling programs, conduct chinook stock assessments, and support habitat recovery efforts from Oregon to Alaska. This impacts state and tribal salmon management efforts at a magnitude that exceeds our ability to find other funding to make up the shortfall.

Managing sustainable fisheries depends on NOAA’s participation, which includes analysis and production of compliance documents. Even slight delays to these reports could cancel a tribal or state fishery, costing jobs, harming food supplies, diminishing the exercise of our treaty rights, and damaging the marine-based economy.

The Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund also is at risk, which would endanger more than 70 tribal jobs essential to fisheries monitoring and evaluation.

Hatchery Programs: Federal cuts to NOAA and the Bureau of Indian Affairs also threaten the hatchery programs that provide more than 80% of salmon harvested by tribal and nontribal fishers in the Pacific Northwest. Tribal hatcheries release about 40 million salmon each year. Without federal funding, we won’t be able to maintain and upgrade facilities, implement hatchery management plans, or conduct research and monitoring needed to rear healthy broodstock.

Also in danger is the U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystems Program, which includes the Fish Health Program at the Western Fisheries Research Center. This work ensures we have the most up-to-date knowledge about pathogens to prevent their spread in salmon at all life stages.

Tribal Sovereignty: Our tribal sovereignty to manage our own treaty-protected natural resources depends on funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), such as the Puget Sound Geographic Program, to support research and monitoring. EPA funding also supports our participation in partnerships with federal, state and local agencies to steward fishery and wildlife resources.

Even without cuts to specific programs, staff reductions could delay fund disbursement that enable tribes to participate in processes that protect our treaty-reserved rights. These include intergovernmental fishery management processes, U.S./Canada fishing treaties and other scientific exercises critical for adaptive management of treaty fishing.

Federal funding supports tribes’ capacity to engage in these processes that uphold treaty rights and protect resources such as salmon and shellfish.

Investing in salmon recovery directly and indirectly supports jobs in restoration projects, fishing, transportation and tourism.

Government support of tribal natural resources management is not optional.

The United States has a trust obligation to protect tribal treaty rights to fish, hunt and gather as we always have. That includes providing the funding we need and conducting necessary administrative functions in a timely manner to allow us to exercise our treaty rights and protect natural resources for the next seven generations.

Ed Johnstone is a member of the Quinault Indian Nation.