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The Kelp Values project centers Indigenous perspectives and came from a co-production of knowledge approach that was initiated by the Native Conservancy and the Chugach Regional Resources Commission. Together with all 3 campuses in the University of Alaska System, we secured funding from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council for a five-year project to help understand the cultural, social, and economic value of kelp and seaweeds in the South Coast region of Alaska, from Cordova through Kodiak. Together with our partners from Alaska Department of Fish and Game Division of Subsistence, we will work with 10 Villages in the region to understand how new kelp mariculture operations in this area can be compatible with local cultural values of Indigenous communities. This effort requires a holistic approach that applies cultural, social and economic methodologies integrated across a series of three, interconnected hypotheses:

H1: Evaluation of historical ecology, distribution and practices of traditional Indigenous mariculture and subsistence harvest activities is necessary for effective site selection of potential future mariculture sites.

H2: New kelp mariculture activity that is led by Indigenous communities in the spill zone will have additional benefits relative to subsistence harvest and commercial fishing activities at the local scale.

H3: Kelp mariculture led by Indigenous communities presents a viable economic activity that can help attenuate continued impacts on commercial fishing in the spill zone.

Map of spill affected area created by the University of Alaska Fairbanks

Want to get in touch? Please contact Aaron Poe at [email protected]

This project is supported by a wide variety of partner organizations and individuals. Meet the team below!

Tom Bell
Tom is an Assistant Scientist in Applied Ocean Science and Engineering at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute where he leads the spatial ecology and environmental remote sensing laboratory. Tom's research focuses on macroalgal physiology and production modeling, marine spatial planning, remote sensing, and ecosystem carbon cycling.

Kevin Berry
Kevin is an environmental economist at the University of Alaska Anchorage. His current research projects include fisheries management under uncertainty, coastal erosion. and community capacity building. He is interested in questions that include the interaction between endogenous risk and natural capital. His primary interest is in research that aids policymakers in responding to a rapidly changing world by understanding the tradeoffs associated with investing in risk mitigation efforts versus ex post adaptation. This includes identifying individual responses to environmental change to better understand individual behavior and modelling policy responses at the government and global level.

Karen Grosskreutz
Karen came to Alaska in 2009 to guide experiential leadership programs with youth. She has also led cross-cultural travel with high school students internationally, guided adult and family wilderness expeditions, and worked as a scientific expedition leader. She has worked as a lighthouse keeper, caretaker, and in a variety of situations in rural and remote coastal Alaska. Karen earned a BA in Social Science from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina and a MSc in Sustainable Resource Management at the Technical Science University of Munich in Germany. She makes her home with her husband in Juneau on Lingít Aaní. They have also lived in Homer on Dena'ina lands. Karen grew up in Southeast Wisconsin, where her family of origin and niece and nephew live. Karen supports community-based resource management and engages in research that addresses priorities of Tribes and communities. She aims to center Indigenous voices and community priorities in decision-making processes.

David Guilfoyle
Dave is a healthy land and sea program manager with a background in cultural and applied anthropology, heritage preservation, and community-based youth and cultural ranger program design and delivery. He has led several, multi-year projects in collaborative heritage planning and management with communities across Australia, Alaska, and the Four Corners of the USA, with a focus on place and landscape-based assessment methodologies; cultural values mapping; significance assessment of cultural places; working under and working to support cultural and community leadership models in land and sea management programs. His formal qualifications include a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology and Geography (Curtin University and the University of Oregon), a Bachelor of Science degree in Archaeology (University of Western Australia), and a Master of Arts in Archaeology and Heritage (University of Leicester, England). He holds research associations with several institutions and works on active healthy land and sea programs in Australia and Alaska.

Willow Hetrick-Price
Willow is the Executive Director of Chugach Regional Resources Commission. She is responsible for the nonprofit Inter-Tribal Fish and Wildlife Commission, which is involved in projects and programs related to natural resources, subsistence, climate change, environmental management and research, in addition to community economic development related to natural resources and the environment. She is also responsible for identifying funding sources and developing funding proposals with and on behalf of the Tribes of the Chugach region. Willow serves on the Board of the Prince William Sound Stewardship Foundation as Secretary, the Kenai Mountains–Turnagain Arm National Heritage Area as President, and the Anchorage Advisory Committee to the Boards of Fish and Game as Secretary.

Barbara Johnson
Barbara is the Assistant Director of Alaska Cooperative Development Center, a unit of UAA's Business Enterprise Institute. Prior to providing technical assistance to co-ops across Alaska, she worked for almost a decade on rural development project. She has an MSc in Resource and Applied Economics and is a Ph.D. Candidate in Natural Resources and Sustainability at the University of Alaska.

Jacqueline Keating
Jackie is the senior researcher for the ADF&G Division of Subsistence, Southcentral Region. She holds an M.S. in Sociology from Utah State University, funded by an X-STEM grant for integrating social and natural sciences. Keating has over a decade of experience leading complex multidisciplinary research projects in remote Alaska communities, particularly in the Kodiak and Chugach regions. The Division of Subsistence works to scientifically gather, quantify, evaluate, and report information on the customary and traditional uses of Alaska’s fish and wildlife resources, and relies on working collaboratively with tribal entities and community partners.

Dune Lankard
An Eyak Athabaskan Native of the Eagle Clan, Dune grew up in Cordova, in southcentral Alaska. Born into a fishing family, his life education as a subsistence and commercial fisherman began at age five. He later earned a living as a fishery and processing consultant and commercial fisher in the Copper River Delta and Prince William Sound. The Exxon Valdez oil spill transformed him into a social change activist and Native Rights leader. He has founded and co-founded several key organizations, including the Eyak Preservation Council (EPC), the FIRE Fund (Fund for Indigenous Rights and the Environment); the RED OIL Network (Resisting Environmental Degradation of Indigenous Lands), and the Native Conservancy (NC). His work has helped win the preservation of more than 1 million acres of the Copper River Delta and wide recognition, including Time magazine’s Hero of the Planet, as well as fellowships with the Ashoka Foundation, the Hunt Alternatives Fund, Future of Fish, among others.

Rachel Lekanoff
Rachel Lekanoff joined the Northern Latitudes Partnerships as ABSI’s Research Coordinator in 2024. She grew up in Washington state, and made frequent visits to her family in Unalaska, learning about her Unangax̂ culture and heritage. She earned her B.S. in Environmental Science at Western Washington University. Wanting to be closer to her Alaskan family, she moved north to attend the University of Alaska Fairbanks and earned an M.S. in Oceanography in 2020. Since getting her master’s, Rachel has worked on behalf of the Aleutian Pribilof region on a variety of projects including tribal fisheries co-management, climate resilience, and environmental remediation. She is now also a graduate student at UAF (again!) as a Tamamta fellow pursuing a PhD in Fisheries. Her research interests include genomics as a fisheries monitoring tool for rural Alaska. Academically and professionally, she endeavors to elevate Indigenous Knowledge to develop a more holistic view of the fisheries and marine ecosystems all Alaskans rely on. Outside of work and school, Rachel is an avid cyclist and cross-country skier and is frequently on the incredible trail networks in and around Anchorage.

Briana Murphy
Briana is the Kenai Peninsula Mariculture Liaison; she grew up commercially fishing with her family in Alaska prior to becoming involved in the mariculture industry in 2020. She joined Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute in January 2023, where she has enjoyed participating in the important work of quantifying the effects kelp farms can have on surrounding waters. She is a current kelp farmer and hatchery manager based primarily in Seward, Alaska.

Aaron Poe
Aaron has worked in Alaska for over 27 years and is focused on building equitable partnerships between agencies, Tribes, Indigenous Organizations, nonprofits, academia, industry, and rural communities that address large-scale conservation and climate adaptation issues. He has worked for Alaska Conservation Foundation since 2018, where he helps provide and direct resources to 3 regional resilience efforts known as the Northern Latitudes Partnerships. He also serves on the Steering Committee for a fourth regional partnership that he helped found in 2024, called the Alaska South Coast Partnership in south central Alaska. He previously served for 5 years on the Steering Committee of the Sustainable Southeast Partnership and helped fund and launch a local, cold climate food security agriculture program, Alaska Resilience Farms. Prior to coming to ACF, he worked for 21 years in the federal government for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service, where he worked in wildlife biology, natural resource management, bioregional planning, and partnership development. He has B.S. degrees in Fisheries and Wildlife Management and Geography from Utah State University and a Master’s in Natural Resource Management from the University of Arizona. He is grateful to have lived on the lands of the Dena’ina people in Anchorage for 27 years and has recently relocated his family to his mom’s birth country of Ireland.

Michael Stekoll
Mike is an Emeritus Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Alaska Southeast and the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks. He received a BS in chemistry from Stanford and a PhD in biochemistry from UCLA. He has spent the last 40+ years in Alaska teaching university classes in chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, aquatic pollution and phycology. His research interests have focused on two major areas: aquatic pollution effects on fish, invertebrates and marine algae (seaweeds) and research on the mariculture of seaweeds. His lab has worked out the procedures for the successful mariculture of the kelps Macrocystis. Alaria, and Saccharina in Alaska. He and colleagues have researched the physiological ecology of several species of Alaskan Pyropia/Porphyra as it relates to future commercial production. Current focus is on applied research on kelp mariculture. The latest projects are investigating the mariculture of Saccharina latissima (sugar kelp) especially with respect to this species’ use in large scale production for biofuels and the mariculture of Nereocystis luetkeana (bull kelp). He lives in Juneau with his wife Deborah Hansen. They have four, now adult, offspring: Justin, Skye, Spencer and Kokii, and have accumulated seven grandchildren.

Della Stroh
Della serves as the Cultural Values Mapping project manager for Native Conservancy. She graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in Anthropology and completed Field School at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland. She began her career in environmental-focused nonprofit organizations in the Operations and Anthropology departments at The California Academy of Sciences. There, she gained invaluable hands-on experience in management, community engagement, and working to preserve and document cultural heritage. Guided by a philosophy of solidarity, she approaches her work by fostering collaboration and community empowerment. She is deeply committed to supporting efforts to preserve heritage, safeguard habitat, and promote Indigenous sovereignty and custodianship of their Ancestral lands. Since 2021, she has lived and worked on the road, immersing herself in nature and culture throughout Turtle Island and documenting the locations, landscapes, and learnings of a nomadic life.

Tom Thornton
Tom is a Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Alaska Southeast. Thornton earned a bachelor’s degree in Sociology/Anthropology from Swarthmore College and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Washington. His research interests are in human ecology, adaptation, local and traditional ecological knowledge, conservation, coastal and marine environments, conceptualizations of space and place, and the political ecology of resource management among the indigenous peoples of North America and the circumpolar North.

Christian Woodward
Christian is an ADF&G Subsistence Resource Specialist II working in the Southcentral Region. He is the lead author on a recent Subsistence Division technical paper characterizing the harvest and use of salmon in Port Graham and Nanwalek from 2016-2017. Christian holds a B.A. in Nonfiction Writing (Middlebury College 2010) and an MFA in Creative Writing (Warren Wilson College 2022); his master’s thesis investigates relationships between humans, land, and animals as mediated by language. Prior to joining the ADF&G Subsistence Division, Christian worked as a commercial fisherman, hunting guide, and as a journalist covering natural resource topics. He brings more than a decade of interviewing experience to the project, as well as familiarity with diverse hunting and fishing practices in Southcentral Alaska.