Featured image: Northern Elephant Seal © Robert Schwemmer
(CALIFORNIA CENTRAL COAST) – The chilly Pacific waters, rocky shorelines and rolling golden dunes that mark California’s iconic Central Coast have been home to the Chumash Peoples, among others, since time immemorial. Submerged villages of over 15,000 years past are now where sea otters float with their young and snowy plovers scuttle across the sand. Fast forward to 10 years ago, the late Chief Fred Collins proposed the first Tribally nominated National Marine Sanctuary in the United States to permanently protect over 7,000 square miles of irreplaceable ocean ecosystems and to preserve Chumash cultural heritage. Today, his daughter, Violet Sage Walker, Chair, Northern Chumash Tribal Council, is determined to carry on the Chumash Legacy of stewardship and to see her father’s dream through.…