What Would an Indigenous Law of the Sea Look Like?

Wáahlaal Gíidaak, who is Indigenous Haida, Tlingit, and Ahtna Athabascan, grew up on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska that was home to about 6,000 people.

She spent her career working in government and public policy advocating for Indigenous peoples and when she was first approached to work for the Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting oceans, she initially hesitated.

“A lot of our conservation organizations in the U.S. and Alaska have not always had a great history of working with Indigenous peoples in a healthy way,” she said.

She eventually took the job and is now the vice president of the Ocean Conservancy’s Arctic and Northern Waters program where she’s helping to convene conversations about what it would mean to create an Indigenous Law of the Sea.