The Coquille Tribe and Oregon’s Department of Fish and Wildlife have signed a landmark Memorandum of Agreement to co-manage Southern Oregon’s fish and wildlife.

Announced at the tribe’s 33rd annual restoration celebration, the MOA is being heralded as the first comprehensive agreement between the state of Oregon and a tribe related to natural resources management. The 14-page agreement outlines a “framework to share resources, expertise, and influence to protect, enhance, and restore fish and wildlife habitat in the geographic scope of the agreement.”

“This agreement is a long time coming. It will ensure that for the Coquille People, our history and our cultural practices will never go extinct! We will continue to be here on this land that we have walked on since time began, and we will continue to be here to share our knowledge of these most important resources and to continue to be stewards of the land, water, and the many invaluable resources found here,” Brenda Meade, chairman of the tribal council, said.

The announcement of the agreement came just over a year after informed tribal leadership that the number of fall-run Chinook salmon returning to the river had dropped from more than 30,000 in 2010 to just a few hundred.

After hearing the news of drastically declining numbers, the tribe declared an emergency and began aggressively seeking support from local, regional, and state officials. In August 2021, Meade made her first plea to the Port of Bandon.

“Our salmon are dying. Our river is dying. The Coquille River may be the first river in Oregon to go extinct of salmon. These fish are not just important to the tribe, but to all our communities. I refuse to let this happen, not on my watch as Chairman. I’m here to ask the Port of Bandon to partner with us to save the salmon of the Coquille River,” she said.

The port immediately passed a resolution to provide resources and people to assist in efforts to catch and breed salmon and also request Gov. Kate Brown’s support for the collaborative management approach proposed by the Coquille tribe.

The port’s letter to Brown stated, “The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has worked to address this crisis, but its efforts to date have been inadequate. We believe the Coquille Tribe’s resources, experience, and motivation can swing the balance in the salmon’s favor. We urge you to endorse the partnership developing between the tribe and ODFW. Cooperative management offers the best hope to forestall extinction of these precious, magnificent fish and restore the watershed for the salmon and all of us who depend upon its health.”

In the months that followed, Meade petitioned the governor’s office, all of Oregon’s federally recognized tribes, congressional and state representatives, the National Marine Fisheries Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, regional ports, and county commissions. Simultaneously, she initiated talks with ODFW proposing a collaborative approach to manage natural resources in five of the six southern counties from Eugene to California.

“The first two months of our discussions were really trying,” she said. “We (ODFW and the tribe) didn’t see eye to eye, but we all committed that we were going to communicate. We were going to sit down as equals. We were going to talk about the issues we’re seeing in our homelands and talk about how we can bring solutions by the ‘boots on the ground’ rather than political policies made in Salem. This is a landmark moment for Oregon tribes to gain more authority in natural resource management and water policy decisions, and for local communities to have more say in the lands they hold so dear.”

Davia Palmeri, the conservation policy coordinator for ODFW, concurs.

“There are a lot of challenges to the fish and wildlife in this landscape. Ocean conditions are warmer, land use changes, renewable energy development is happening. The agreement is intentionally crafted as a framework to create a working partnership for cooperative management of fish and wildlife. The tribes are our best ally in protecting fish and wildlife for the future. Will there be challenges in implementation? Maybe. But in the long arc of history, we think this is the right thing to do.”

Palmeri acknowledged the state hopes that federal funding and grant opportunities available to the tribe will help the beleaguered fish and wildlife department.

“Yes. A huge benefit we see is bringing those resources to Oregon toward our shared goals,” Palmeri said. “The tribe’s mission is to create habitats for use and enjoyment for present and future generations. This agreement, and hopefully others like it, open a new era of proactive, voluntary cooperation between the state and tribe, while increasing tribal sovereignty over management of fish and wildlife populations.”

Fred Messerle, the owner of Messerle & Sons, is a fifth-generation rancher whose family roots date to the 1852 donation lands claim era. He sees the agreement as an opportunity to move resource management away from legislative policy makers back into the hands of community leaders and land managers who know what needs to be done and how to do it.

“I’ve heard some negative feedback that ODFW is giving a free ride to all the tribal members to hunt and fish. But they already had those rights. They’ve had them since day one.”

He too acknowledged the vague parameters of the agreement.

“The tribe’s goal is to improve the Chinook run on the Coquille. ODFW hasn’t made any headway for quite a while, so what do you have to lose? I guess I would say, anything that can be done to give us the infrastructure to continue to run our agricultural business, but also add to the balance for habitat, why wouldn’t we want to be supportive of that?”

Even before the agreement was signed, the Coquille Tribe and neighboring communities began planning aggressive actions to halt the decline of fall Chinook salmon in the Coquille River system.

In July, the first high-prize Striped Bass Derby was hosted by the Port of Coquille River to reduce the number of this invasive species devouring the dwindling salmon population. 2,000 Bass were caught during the two-day event.

“We’re not going to get rid of all of them, but if we can just mobilize enough fishing poles, we can make a real dent,” Port Commission member Fred Fry said.

Meade recognizes that people are making a huge leap of faith in the tribe, but asserts, “Extinction is not an outcome that we can live with.”

Declaring a collaborative approach is the only way to save a species and a river in peril, she contends, “The importance of the agreement is not only to tribes, but the communities throughout the region. The agreement provides three things, cultural restoration of my tribe, a cooperative agreement between sovereign nations, and a chance to move decisions out of politics and back to all communities in this region directly impacted by the threats to our environment.”

Carolyn Campbell, a former leadership & business coach, left city life four years ago to better understand the rural/city divide. Today she lives and works in rural regions to experience first-hand the issues these communities face and the innovative approaches to solving complex issues.