--- description: Find out why Violet Sage Walker is on TIME's 2025 list of the 100 most influential leaders driving business climate action. title: Violet Sage Walker: The 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c535dd6bfdb9324/6998caf947fe51205b55c2fd/Defenders-Violet-Sage-Walker.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Oct 30, 2025 # Violet Sage Walker Chairwoman, Northern Chumash Tribal Council by [Jay Bouchard](/author/jay-bouchard/) ## Jay Bouchard Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Courtesy Photo) The Chumash people, skilled coastal navigators, have lived along the coast of central California for an estimated 20,000 years. The waters bordering present day San Luis Obispo County are central to their cultural heritage, and tribal leaders have long fought to protect the marine environment. Violet Sage Walker, chairwoman of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council, spent more than a decade working with her father, Chief Fred Collins, to create the [Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary](https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/chumash-heritage/ "undefined"). In 2015, after learning that these coastal waters were slated for oil exploration and seismic testing, Walker’s family became the first Indigenous applicants for a marine sanctuary, one that would protect more than 4,500 square miles of ocean waters, sea floor, and coastline. After Collins died in 2021, Walker led the charge. Ultimately, after years of campaigning and overcoming a series of bureaucratic hurdles, she succeeded: the sanctuary was [designated](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/13/nx-s1-5147914/the-u-s-gets-a-new-national-marine-sanctuary-the-first-led-by-a-tribe "undefined") by the Biden Administration in November 2024, which makes extractive behavior like oil exploration prohibited in the area. “We ran one of the most visible and successful campaigns in the nation,” Walker says. In October 2025, Walker was recognized with the [Peter Douglas Coastal Stewardship Award](https://asbpa.org/2024/02/26/peter-douglas-coastal-stewardship-award/ "undefined"), and her work is not done. She’s now trying to acquire a sacred site—the [Dos Pueblos Ranch](https://northernchumash.org/dos-pueblos/ "undefined")—and return the land to the Chumash people, an effort that will honor the cultural heritage of the tribe and protect the ranch’s biodiversity. “My dad always wanted people to know the word and the name Chumash,” she says. “He wanted people to know what a beautiful people we are.” Walker answered TIME’s survey on the state of the climate movement: **What’s one sustainability effort you personally will try to adopt in the next year?** My backyard is the Pacific Ocean. Kelp is a facet of blue carbon that can make a huge difference in mitigating climate change. It has the ability to capture and store carbon in a shorter time scale than land forests, and its potential to grow globally makes it an obvious yet untapped resource. NCTC is currently in escrow on a property that has a kelp production and storage facility, and the only active mechanical kelp harvesting boat on the coast of California. I will personally work to utilize this resource, share the knowledge, and expand the use of kelp and red seaweed as a sustainable food source. I will utilize the outreach and education experience I developed from running a successful international sanctuary campaign to share the benefits of kelp harvesting. This solution will be particularly vital during the increasing periods of extreme weather that our planet will soon experience. **What is a climate solution that isn't getting the attention or funding it deserves?** As an Indigenous Chumash farmer, the first thing that comes to mind is a sustainable food source system using regenerative agriculture. The regenerative practices we use come from knowledge passed down through generations of Chumash People. Indigenous Knowledge promotes sustainable and restorative land stewardship using organic cover cropping to enhance soil quality and support pollinators, alongside practices that enrich the soil, such as compost applications, mulching of tree trimmings, and no-till farming methods. These regenerative practices not only increase soil carbon reserves but also enhance water and nutrient retention, contributing to carbon neutrality. Women-led organizations traditionally lack sufficient funding. However, NCTC is successfully reintroducing these practices and sharing our knowledge here in California. International women-led organizations need exposure and funding to share and implement regenerative agriculture to create sustainable food source systems in low-income communities and countries. A few that come to mind are: Women, Food, and Agriculture Network (WFAN), Women's Global Empowerment Fund, and Daughters of the Earth. **If you could stand up and talk to world leaders at the next COP, what would you say?** We, as people of this sacred planet, had the opportunity to turn climate change around and save Hutash/Mother Earth, seemingly for infinite future generations. We squandered that opportunity. The Chumash creation story tells how Mother Earth created the People on an island with the seeds of a magic plant. Her husband, Alchupo’osh (Sky Snake, or the Milky Way) gifted the People fire, which allowed the island population to grow. Soon, the island was crowded, and the noise the humans made annoyed Hutash. She decided they needed a new, larger home, so she created a rainbow bridge connecting the island to the mainland. Where is our rainbow bridge today? Are we going to connect to another land with space flight, leaving this one behind? What about those people who can’t make that voyage? Who in this scenario gets left behind? Our world leaders need to come together as One People, set politics and profits aside. We need to stop repeating the mistakes of the past and create a new reality that allows all people to thrive and brings hope to our planet, to Our People. We need to rise together here on Hutash before it’s too late. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326600/violet-sage-walker/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326600/violet-sage-walker/"},"headline":"Violet Sage Walker","datePublished":"2025-10-30T11:30:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T01:01:44.774Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326600/violet-sage-walker/","keywords":["TIME100 Climate 2025","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c535dd6bfdb9324/6998caf947fe51205b55c2fd/Defenders-Violet-Sage-Walker.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jay Bouchard","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jay-bouchard/"}],"creator":"Jay Bouchard","articleSection":"Climate","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c535dd6bfdb9324/6998caf947fe51205b55c2fd/Defenders-Violet-Sage-Walker.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/climate/","name":"Climate"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time100-climate-2025/","name":"TIME100 Climate 2025"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326600/violet-sage-walker/","name":"Violet Sage Walker"}}]}] ```