Tribal Profiles, Fact Sheets and Climate Planning Tools

A growing number of Tribal Nations work with the U.S. Forest Service on adjacent lands through this structured process to consider the effects of climate change on forests and related ecosystems and plan projects together to build climate resiliency.

The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium’s (ANTHC) Center for Climate and Health has done a tremendous amount of work over the past four years to support Alaska Native communities in chronicling climate change impacts on the landscape and on human health. Staff members from the center apply their “engineering, environmental health and community health experience to perform assessments, develop community-appropriate strategies, and to describe climate-health connections.”Much of the early work has focused on areas of Alaska with high climate vulnerability, including the Northwest Arctic. Impacts of climate change in the Northwest Arctic region range from thinning sea and river ice, to permafrost melting and coastal erosion. Though many research groups are working to identify and monitor the changing environmental conditions around Alaska, ANTHC’s approach is unique both in its data collection methods and its focus, namely community-based adaptation strategies.

Increasingly, evidence suggests that warmer ocean temperatures associated with climate change have contributed to worldwide increases in the duration, frequency, and geographical distribution of harmful algal blooms (HABs). As ocean temperatures rise, increases in HAB outbreaks are expected to worsen over the next few decades. In response, researchers, shellfish growers, and managers must begin to investigate adaptation strategies that can increase their resilience and their capacity to endure climate-driven changes in HAB events. Although the State of Alaska regularly tests commercial shellfisheries for toxins, they do not test recreational and subsistence shellfisheries. In October 2013—after two cases of paralytic shellfish poisoning in Sitka—regional tribal communities formed the Southeast Alaska Tribal Toxins (SEATT) partnership to combat the risks of HABs to subsistence shellfish harvesters. The SEATT partnership seeks to bring tribes in southeastern Alaska together to assess the beaches and shellfish that the state cannot test, increasing access to subsistence resources for tribal members. To date, 11 of the 17 Tribal Nations located in southeast Alaska have joined the partnership. Training and technical assistance for the SEATT partnership is provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Marine Biotoxin Programs in Seattle, Washington, and Charleston, South Carolina.

The Yakima River Basin in the state of Washington supports a multi-billion dollar agriculture sector. The value of apples, cherries, and other food and natural resources harvested from across the basin make substantial contributions to the local, regional, and national economies. Additionally, the region has significant populations of salmon and steelhead trout. The fish are essential to tribal members' subsistence lifestyles and cultural traditions, and they support a thriving recreational fishing industry. Over a 15-year period in the recent past, the basin faced five years with drought conditions. The lack of water in each dry year had a strong negative impact on the region’s productivity and pointed out the risk that climate variability and change pose to the basin. Further, the Third National Climate Assessment and other studies indicate that the region can expect even more challenges as climate changes. Recognizing their vulnerability, representatives of the Yakama Nation, irrigation districts, environmental organizations, and federal, state, county, and city governments formed a work group in 2009 to design and implement a solution to the basin’s growing water problems. By 2011, the group released a basin-wide climate adaptation strategy designed to secure a future for fish, farms, and families across the basin. The Yakima Basin Integrated Water Resource Management Plan is a 30-year, $3.8 billion plan that restores ecological integrity to the region and provides assurances for meeting agricultural water needs even in the face of ongoing climate change. The plan is a collaborative effort to restore and protect ecosystems: it strategically and creatively addresses the realities of climate uncertainty and places the basin on a path to long-term resiliency.

The Isle de Jean Charles is a slender ridge of land between Bayou Terrebonne and Bayou Pointe-aux-Chene in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana-home to the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians. Although once virtually cut off from civilization until the 1950's the island tribe is now dealing with serious changes to the natural environment from anthropogenic interference. This includes impacts from oil and gas that has allowed salt water to inundate wetlands' levees that have cut off Mississippi water flow and sediment needed to replenish the land. These imapcts, in conjuction with rising sea level and an increased storm severity due to climate change, is contributing to the disapearance of the island.

Our efforts bring together a diverse group of natural and cultural resource partners (including tribes)  to create landscapes and ecosystems that represent commonly held community values, use the best available science and knowledge, with a goal for a connected, resilient region for years to come. CCLC offers habitat connectivity tools, spatial mapping tools, and partner assessments.

In an effort to prepare for changes to their homelands’ ecology, the Nez Perce Tribe’s Water Resources Division created a climate change adaptation plan for the Clearwater River Subbasin in 2011. The plan focuses on climate impacts to water and forestry resources, two areas of natural resource management that are both culturally and economically important to the Nez Perce Tribe. The adaptation plan includes an assessment of existing conditions in the subbasin, and data on how changes in climate may impact forests, waters, and the local economy. This profile highlights the efforts of the Nez Perce Tribe to increase awareness of climate change issues in their region through this plan, as well as their strategies for integrating adaptation into existing and future management plans. To download a PDF of the plan, click here.

NNRG is a think-learn-and-do tank of ecological forestry. Operating primarily in western Washington and Oregon, they focus on forests owned and managed by private landowners, smaller forest product companies, governmental agencies, Indian tribes, and non-profit organizations. They aim to strengthen the ecological and economic vitality of Northwest forests and communities by connecting people with the knowledge, skills, and markets they need to steward their land. In Fall 2019 NNRG hosted three workshops on Climate Adaptation Strategies for Pacific Northwest Forests to help foresters and land managers make informed decisions about adapting their management practices to meet their goals and sustain forests into the future. View past recordings and presentations here. 

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.

Provides information regarding forestry risks and crises for tribes, and suggests climate adaptation initiatives for tribal use.

A growing body of literature examines the vulnerability, risk, resilience, and adaptation of indigenous peoples to climate change. This synthesis of literature brings together research pertaining to the impacts of climate change on sovereignty, culture, health, and economies that are currently being experienced by Alaska Native and American Indian tribes and other indigenous communities in the United States. The knowledge and science of how climate change impacts are affecting indigenous peoples contributes to the development of policies, plans, and programs for adapting to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This report defines and describes the key frameworks that inform indigenous understandings of climate change impacts and pathways for adaptation and mitigation, namely, tribal sovereignty and self-determination, culture and cultural identity, and indigenous community health indicators. It also provides a comprehensive synthesis of climate knowledge, science, and strategies that indigenous communities are exploring, as well as an understanding of the gaps in research on these issues. This literature synthesis is intended to make a contribution to future efforts such as the 4th National Climate Assessment, while serving as a resource for future research, tribal and agency climate initiatives, and policy development.

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.