Tribal Profiles, Fact Sheets and Climate Planning Tools

As emissions of heat-trapping bases accumulate in our atmosphere, Earth's polar regions are warming more quickly than at lower latitudes. The rapid environmental changes that result from this warming can have a significant impact on the physical and mental health of rural Alaskans: unpredictable weather and changes in the seasons have made harvesting food more difficult, hazardous, and stressful. The climate-related challenge faced by Alaska’s tribal health system is to recognize new health stressors and community vulnerabilities, and then find healthy adaptation strategies in an increasingly uncertain future. Since 1997, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) has operated a non-profit, statewide system of health services for more than 143,000 Alaska Native Villages and Native American Tribes. In 2009, ANTHC established the Center for Climate and Health to help people understand climate change impacts on community health and work to address them. To help raise awareness about the connections between climate change and community health, ANTHC uses a variety of communication and education products including ClimeMap, The LEO Network, and an e-journal which provides weekly access to other map tools, updates, assessments, and bulletins.

While the residents of Alaska Native villages face a disproportionately higher risk of having their traditional subsistence lifestyles affected by Arctic development, they also recognize that changes bring new opportunities. Accordingly, leaders of several Alaska Native Village Corporations have stepped up to discuss the potential positive and negative impacts to their region with resource producers and other development groups. Seven Alaska Native Village Corporations—Gambell, Golovin, Saint Michael, Sitnasuak, Stebbins, Unalakleet, and Wales—have formed a limited liability corporation, the Bering Sea Alliance (BSA), to have a stronger voice in protecting their subsistence way of life when working with other groups such as government agencies and private organizations. Working together through BSA, they aim to engage in dialogue with key stakeholders to protect the rich abundance of their region while striving to enhance their disadvantaged local economies. To help Alaska Natives build local capacity to prepare for oil and gas development, BSA holds a variety of training workshops and conferences for these communities. BSA also seeks joint ventures with organizations in the public and private sectors to provide services such as spill-response and rescue operations.

Algaaciq Native Village (also known as St. Mary’s) is a predominantly Yupik village of approximately 500 people. The village lies near the confluence of the Andreafsky and Yukon Rivers, upstream from the delta into the Bering Sea in southwest Alaska. This profile describes observed impacts of climate change on the village and a woodstove changeout project that has Increased air quality and provided environmental benefits.

Alaska’s western coast has seen substantial changes in recent years. During 2013, the Village of Shishmaref saw 60 feet of shoreline vanish in a single storm. Over a five-year period, storms also removed 30 feet of shoreline at an ancient Yup’ik village near Quinhagak, increasing the urgency of archaeologists and the community to protect this historic site. And recently, storm surges have flooded portions of the town of Golovin so frequently that residents made a decision to relocate some of their essential infrastructure to higher ground. These events illustrate the vulnerability of western Alaska’s coastal communities and cultural resources to rising seas and eroding coastlines. As the region warms—and sea ice and land-fast ice that once protected coastlines during extreme storms disappears—the impacts of coastal erosion will only increase. Issues of coastal change in the region fall within the purview of the Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC). The LCC is one of 22 regional efforts across the United States launched to better integrate science and management in addressing climate change and other landscape-scale issues. The Western Alaska LCC is governed by a partnership of 14 state, federal, and tribal organizations with input from academia, agencies, non-profit organizations, consulting firms, and traditional knowledge experts. In 2012, the Western Alaska LCC co-hosted a coastal hazards workshop with the Alaska Ocean Observing System and the Alaska Climate Science Center. At the workshop, a broad group of stakeholders identified their needs for information and tools that would help them understand and forecast how the coast is changing. To date, the LCC has sponsored or co-sponsored 17 projects to address recommendations offered by workshop participants.

The Climate Change Adaptation Certification Tool was developed to support communities beyond planning—helping them implement their updated Comprehensive Plan. Using this 3-step CCAC tool for rapid implementation of climate savvy planning goals and policies will enable community services, infrastructure, ecosystems and economies to better anticipate and respond to the effects of climate change.

These 2-page Fact Sheets focus on climate change impacts, adaptation strategies, and other relevant topics. They may be used in outreach with tribal government staff, leadership and communities.

These 2-page Fact Sheets focus on climate change impacts, adaptation strategies, and other relevant topics. They may be used in outreach with tribal government staff, leadership and communities.

These 2-page Fact Sheets focus on climate change impacts, adaptation strategies, and other relevant topics. They may be used in outreach with tribal government staff, leadership and communities.

In 2008, the Coquille Indian Tribe established a Climate Change Committee to engage tribal government, tribal members, and natural and cultural resource managers in the development of a Climate Change Action Plan. This profile highlights key concerns and potential climate change impacts to the Coquille Tribe, and initial tribal strategies to address climate change.

These 2-page Fact Sheets focus on climate change impacts, adaptation strategies, and other relevant topics. They may be used in outreach with tribal government staff, leadership and communities.

CIER has developed a series of climate planning guidebooks designed for First Nations. This guidebook, the first in the series, details how to begin a planning process.

CIER has developed a set of guidebooks designed for First Nations communities to aid in the development of climate planning documents. This is the third guidebook in that series.

CIER has developed a set of guidebooks designed for First Nations communities to aid in the development of climate planning documents. This is the fourth guidebook in that series.

As temperatures across the Arctic rise at twice the global average, the impacts of climate change in Alaska are already being felt (IPCC 2007). Alaska Natives are among the most impacted in this region, and, according to the Government Accountability Office in 2004, flooding and erosion affected 86% of Alaska Native villages to some extent, and by 2009, the GAO reported that flooding and erosion imminently threatened thirty-one villages. This profile examines the challenges of relocation and offers examples from three Alaska Native villages working to protect their people, culture and natural resources.