Sibyl Diver is an interdisciplinary environmental scientist, a lecturer in the Earth Systems Program, and co-director for the Environmental Justice Working Group at Stanford University. She does community-engaged research on Indigenous water governance in Pacific Northwest salmon watersheds. This includes research on co-management (or collaborative management) arrangements between Indigenous communities and state agencies, and decolonizing methodologies. For the past twenty-five years, she has worked on issues of Indigenous peoples, salmon, and environmental justice around the North Pacific—in the Russian Far East, Alaska, Canada, and the United States, including a long-term research collaboration with the Karuk Tribe. Diver received her doctoral degree in environmental science, policy and management from the University of California, Berkeley.

Title: Social impact assessment of Klamath dam removal: Learning from the Karuk Tribe’s leadership for eco-cultural revitalization

This collaborative research initiative with the Karuk Tribe seeks to understand the social, cultural and economic impacts of dam removal and river restoration in the Klamath Basin from a Tribal perspective (California, Oregon, United States). Dam removal is part of a broader Tribal strategy for basin-wide ecological and cultural revitalization of the Klamath watershed, where Indigenous knowledge systems elucidate deeply interconnected ecological and cultural processes that co-shape this place and its peoples. This talk reflects on twenty years of Indigenous-led advocacy, policy, and science leading to the removal of four dams on the mid-Klamath this year, and shares initial results of our social impact assessment of Klamath dam removal with Tribal partners: https://damremovalsocialimpact.com. The assessment illustrates how Karuk community leaders are recasting dam removal as Indigenous eco-cultural revitalization--shifting the meaning of infrastructure removal to conceptualize a more holistic reference system for Klamath Basin restoration that accounts for Tribal community well-being.