Backyard Buoys

Backyard Buoys empowers Indigenous and other coastal communities to collect and use ocean data to support their blue economy: maritime activities, food security, and coastal hazard protection. Innovations include a sustainable process for community-led stewardship of affordable ocean buoys and a web-based application that renders data easy to understand and bridges to Indigenous knowledge. Backyard Buoys brings together geographically, academically, institutionally, and culturally diverse groups of partners: • Pacific Northwest: Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS), Quileute Tribe, Quinault Indian Nation, Western Washington University • Alaska: Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS), Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska Dept of Natural Resources, Alaska Native Science & Engineering Program • Pacific Islands: Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS), Marshall Islands Conservation Society, National Park of American Samoa, Hawai’i Sea Grant, Conservation International Hawai’i • Sofar Ocean Technologies (Sofar)