Phillip North

Background

About Phillip North

Phil North was raised on the coast of Central California where he split his time between exploring the mountains of Big Sur and the rocky coast (in the water and out). Here he developed his wonder of the natural world. He first worked in Alaska as a deckhand on a salmon tender/crab fishing boat in 1975. Over the next ten years he alternated between California and Alaska. Finally, after finishing a Bachelor of Science in Botany at the University of California, Davis, and a Master's of Science in fisheries at Humboldt State University. He left his USFWS job doing research on instream-flow on California rivers for a move to Alaska full time in 1989. There he worked as an aquatic ecologist for the EPA. Although his duties varied widely, including review of the ecological effects of a wide range of development projects, grant management and Clean Water Act enforcement, he became somewhat of a specialist in the review of mining projects. He initiated the agency's Clean Water Act Section 404(c) action for the Pebble Mineral Prospect in Alaska's extraordinary Bristol Bay watershed. After 28 years as a federal ecologist he retired from the EPA. He spent four years traveling with his family, visiting 13 countries, five continents and several islands. Phil is now in the Pacific Northwest with the Tulalip Tribes working to restore treaty reserved resources and adapting tribal interests to climate change. Phil is an advocate for decolonizing science to remove its inherent racist and colonist foundations.