Good Trouble: Revitalizing Ancestral Indigenous Laws, Governance, and Practices to Restore Ocean Relationships

"What do we need to change in ocean research, governance, and policy?" This is the foremost question we have been asking given current colonial laws and practices have failed to resolve crises of social inequity, biodiversity loss, and climate change brought about by centuries of colonial laws and practices. By combining research and action, several Indigenous-led transdisciplinary initiatives throughout the Pacific Rim are revitalizing and upholding ancestral Indigenous laws and governance systems that reflect generations of observing, experimenting, experiencing, and adapting to environmental change. For example, the Clam Garden Network, Indigenous Aquaculture Collaborative, and Coastal Voices are beginning to increase the social-ecological resilience, productivity, and biodiversity of coastal ocean communities amid extreme climatic events, predator recovery, and socio-political rhetoric. Key ingredients to success include uplifting Hereditary Indigenous leaders and their management knowledge, acknowledging past harms, bridging sovereign knowledge systems, engaging youth and community members anxious to make a difference, and experimenting with diverse care-taking practices grounded in respect, responsibility, reciprocity, and interconnectedness. Underlying these actions are collaborative, transparent, accountable, and long-term, reciprocal relationships. Ultimately, making meaningful change towards an ecologically safe and socially just future for our oceans, and all they encompass, demands replacing entrenched power inequities and siloed practices in biodiversity science and ocean policies with equitable governance processes, systems thinking, continuous learning, and tangible long-term actions.