Dear Editor,
Yes, there are folks working to ensure WILD STEELHEAD are not going extinct on the Olympic Peninsula.
Who are they and what are they doing?
I will assure you that there are many more than I will be able to reference and acknowledge in this writing.
Our efforts toward Wild Steelhead survival will indicate one of our finest commitments to caretaking for our total environment.
Commitment to caring for our total ecosystems and all that depends on them is a measure of stewardship in which we may all take pride. Commitment to things larger than ourselves is a virtue of civilized, caring folks.
Our communities are made of folks such as that.
There are so many ways our community shows its commitment to all. Lions food for firewood, donated Scholarship $$, Rainforest Arts Center, Olympic Natural Resource Center work, and Natural Resources Courses and many others at Forks Peninsula College, to name a few. I am sure we can all list many.
Now in times of reconsidering our uses of natural resources, and our needs for workforce development, we will realize new potentials. Shifting from a harvest/extraction economy to one focused on research with new jobs in data management, collection, coding systems, storage and comprehensive, effective data retrieval, as well as the myriad of other jobs will surprise us all as we accommodate.
To think of local folks doing the many care-taking, monitoring, restoration jobs for our total ecosystems will charm and excite us.
Who would have “thunk”…it? New Days New Ways. Habitat monitoring, restoration, collaborative research projects, assisting tourists to become citizen scientists, students and guests from around the world helping us do work that will be admired by many.
Future NEW DAYS NEW WAYS letters will appear over the next few months to share more about these changes.
Roy Morris
Sekiu
PS. The Washington Clean Coast Alliance is working with others on a $223,000 NOAA Grant on recycling marine debris: net and rope back to re-useable polymers. Maybe we will create new jobs with this initiative and others.