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December 7, 2021
Tribal communities are often on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and have critical insight into effective climate adaptation and natural resource management strategies at the local to national level. Incorporating tribal voices into federal climate and environmental governance decisions, however, is an ongoing challenge.
In November, which was Native American Heritage Month, federal policymakers in the executive and legislative branches highlighted new initiatives that could improve cooperation between tribal nations and the federal government, along with areas for further reform.
On November 15 and 16, the Biden-Harris Administration hosted the White House Tribal Nations Summit, which focused on a range of issues and opportunities faced by the 574 federally-recognized tribes. The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis also held a hearing, Tribal Voices, Tribal Wisdom, Strategies for the Climate Crisis, focusing on issues with accessing federal climate funding. An article summarizing findings from the hearing can be found here.
White House Tribal Nations Summit. Photo Credit: Department of the Interior
Congressional Action on Tribal Issues
During the "Climate Change Impacts and Solutions" panel held at the summit on November 16, speakers discussed recent federal government actions undertaken to support tribes, including authorizing $216 million specifically for tribal climate resilience, adaptation, and community relocation in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (P.L. 117-58).
Speakers representing tribes encouraged further Congressional engagement to take advantage of momentum on climate action. Melanie Bahnke, president of the Alaska-based tribal organization Kawerak, Inc, cited the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area as one example. The Obama Administration established the area in December 2016 by executive order, creating a range of new environmental protections and requirements for tribal input in management decisions over 112,300 square miles of highly productive marine ecosystems in the Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia. The Trump Administration rescinded this order in 2017, but it was reinstated again in 2021 by the Biden-Harris Administration.
To create needed continuity and stability in environmental governance, Bahnke asked federal policymakers to ensure tribes are “not caught in the crossfires of a political football game ... we need to have an eye on the long endgame, ensuring that Congress also enacts legislation that is complementary to administrative executive orders.”
Speakers expressed appreciation for tribe-specific funding in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but underlined the need for more federal climate spending. Bahnke emphasized “if there’s any funding related to climate change coming down the pike [for any agency], there should be tribal set-asides.”
Giving Tribes a Seat at the Table
Speakers further underscored the need for representation in policy negotiations. Bahnke lamented that Tribes have only “observer status” in international forums such as the Arctic Council and the International Maritime Organization, preventing them from fully participating in discussions directly impacting their livelihoods. Fawn Sharp, the president of the National Congress of American Indians and vice president of the Quinault Indian Nation, was the first Native American to be credentialed as a U.N. climate summit delegate by the State Department. She helped represent the United States at the November 2021 global climate negotiations (COP26).
Stephen Roe Lewis, governor of Arizona’s Gila River Indian Community, complimented the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to include tribes in matters concerning the Colorado River Basin’s historic drought—inclusion, he said, that tribes had to “force” in the previous administration while the Colorado River Basin’s 2018 Drought Contingency Plan was drafted.
“Tribes can and should be given an opportunity to lead with their traditional and innovative wisdom, our history, our traditions, our values,” Lewis said. “Keep bringing us to the table early and pay attention to what we say, as this administration has been.”
Natural Resource Conservation and Restoration
The federal government also has a place in facilitating state and local government cooperation with the tribes, as emphasized by Leonard Forsman, the chairman of the Suquamish Tribe and president of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI). In Washington state, for example, tribes are entitled to “half the harvest of salmon, and eventually shellfish, in the Puget Sound and beyond.” These are traditional resources that are threatened by pressures from development, climate change, and pollution.
“We continue to try to protect forests and riparian areas and establish buffers,” said Forsman. “A lot of federal agencies can get engaged in that, helping the tribes encourage the private sector and those local governments and state agencies that regulate them to protect that sacred right for us to continue to harvest.”
A major part of restoring salmon populations in the Northwest, Forsman added, is removing antiquated hydroelectric dams and other barriers obstructing salmon runs. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provides funding to support some river obstruction removal, but one area remains a particular concern: four hydroelectric dams are obstructing river access to salmon on the lower Snake River. ATNI supports the Columbia Basin Initiative proposed by Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), which would remove the dams.
Land management decisions are complicated for tribal leadership as some tribal land allotments have many individual owners due to a legal inheritance process called fractionation. The Department of the Interior’s Land Buy-Back Program purchases land at market rate from willing sellers of these fractionated allotments. Consolidated interests are then restored to tribal trust ownership for the benefit of reservation communities. Forsman recommended reinvesting in this program, which is set to expire in November 2022.
Administrative Action on Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge
While only one panel focused on climate change, climate and environmental issues were recurring touchstones throughout the Tribal Nations Summit's two days. On the first day of the summit, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released a joint memorandum committing to better incorporating Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (ITEK)—the environmental beliefs and observations held by tribal nations—into federal scientific and policymaking processes. Guidance for how agencies will incorporate ITEK will be developed over the next year and presented at the 2022 Tribal Summit.
The memorandum, and the summit, are only the beginning of stronger collaboration between the federal government and tribal governments.
“Climate change disproportionately affects native communities” said CEQ Chair Brenda Mallory during a panel discussion. “It is now more important than ever to assure that the federal government collaborates with tribal nations and native communities to better understand the impacts of climate change on ecosystems landscapes and subsistence resources and to identify durable and sustainable measures to respond to those impacts.”
Author: Amber Todoroff
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