Destiny Bristol Kushin is 18 years old and a tribal member from St. Paul Island, Alaska. At a young age, she realized how badly overfishing and climate change have impacted her community. Destiny is working with her community to address fishing-related problems. Together she believes we can change the world by protecting the oceans that sustain people. She hopes to see her future kids learning to subsistence fish just like she has done most of her life. She states everything, from the land and the ocean to the people and the animals, are connected. Once one part of an ecosystem fails, it affects the entire ecosystem.
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Destiny hosted a camp for her outreach campaign. On St. Paul Island there is a small community of about 300+ people. Destiny wanted to promote community engagement and connecting. She successfully gathered 40+ people of all ages from the community. There were coloring pages and surveys for the people to fill about. The survey was about the PRIME Initiative and the coloring pages were designed to promote 30x30. Destiny and her Kukax Zee made a fish pie dinner which is highly favored by the small community. She also feels like she had the opportunity to really open up a door between the community and the tribal government of St. Paul. Overall Destiny feels like this was a small but necessary step to start promoting the idea of ocean conservation in her village and other villages around the state of Alaska.

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“The OceanEcho 30x30 Fellowship really allowed me to connect with my community and help spread awareness about the importance of ocean conservancy.”