The Capacity Building Project increased the North Central Climate Science Center (NC CSC) constituents’ abilities to gather and use climate data through formation of the Indigenous Phenology Network (IPN), collaboration with AmericaView to join the PhenoCam network, partnership with the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) to offer free regional climate smarts courses, and mentoring of students. 

Tribes and tribal lands in the Northern Rockies/Northern Plains region are already experiencing the effects of climate change, and tribal managers are also already responding to and preparing for the impacts of those changes. However, these managers face many challenges and obstacles to either completing and/or implementing their adaptation plans. The overall goal of this project is to provide tribal managers in this region the opportunity to share experiences, challenges, and successes with each other in order to support climate adaptation efforts. The project researchers will plan and conduct a workshop for tribes in the north central region that are in some stage of climate adaptation planning or implementation. This project is a collaboration between Colorado State University and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes who will build on previous workshops held by the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP) that focused on providing participating tribes with basic information about climate change, adaptation planning, and vulnerability assessments. The project team will work with ITEP to develop the next iteration (“2.0”) of tribal climate adaptation workshops to facilitate tribal managers in their efforts to complete the climate adaptation process. This project will result in tribal managers who are better equipped to carry out adaptation planning, which will ultimately help lessen the harmful impacts of climate change on tribal lands, resources, and communities in the region.

The Wind River Indian Reservation (WRIR) in west-central Wyoming is home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes, who reside near and depend on water from the streams that feed into Wind River. In recent years, however, the region has experienced frequent severe droughts, which have affected tribal livelihoods and cultural activities. Scientists with the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NCCASC) at Colorado State University, the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and several other university and agency partners in the region worked in close partnership with tribal water managers to assess how drought affects the reservation, which included the integration of social, ecological, and hydro-climatological sciences with local knowledge. The study revealed a long history with drought in the region, as well as issues that limit the tribe’s ability to manage their water resources. In addition, changing hydroclimate conditions were identified that can result in changing drought characteristics, which increases the need for adaptive management strategies. The findings are helping to inform the creation of a climate monitoring system and drought management plan, which have been supported with additional technical and financial support from the High Plains Regional Climate Center (HPRCC) and NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS). The drought plan will integrate climate science with hydrologic, social and ecological vulnerabilities and risks, and identify response capacities and strategies to support the Tribal Water Code and related resources management. Ultimately, the plan will help the tribes ensure that agricultural and other societal needs are met during times of drought. As part of the project, tribal water managers and the public were also engaged in educational activities related to water resources and drought preparedness through joint activities with Wyoming Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) to build the tribe’s ability to response to future drought.

The 2019 Tribal Climate Camp, hosted by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, took place June 16-21, 2019 at the Flathead Lake Biological Station in Polson, Montana. The Tribal Climate Camp was designed to support teams of tribal leaders, climate change coordinators, planners and program managers to build skills, gather information and develop tribal policy needed to address climate change impacts. This week-long program helped build individual and team capacity to lead and manage for climate change and adaptation across departments within a tribe, and between tribes and partner agencies and organizations. Participants included tribal climate change staff, policy leaders, Tribal Council, natural resource and environmental managers and staff, administrators, department staff from health, public works, education, housing, and other relevant positions interested in engaging in climate change planning. The 2019 Tribal Camp was organized through a collaboration of Tribal and non-tribal partners including the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI), Institute for Tribal Government (]TG), United South and Eastern Tribes (USET), Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC), North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NC CASC), and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).

Grasslands in the northern Great Plains are important ecosystems that support local economies, tribal communities, livestock grazing, diverse plant and animal communities, and large-scale migrations of big game ungulates, grassland birds, and waterfowl. Climate change and variability impact how people and animals live on and interact with grasslands, and can bring more frequent droughts, fires, or new plant species that make managing these landscapes challenging. Understanding how climate change and variability will impact grassland ecosystems and their management in the 21st century first requires a synthesis of what is known across all of these scales and a gap analysis to identify key areas of focus for future research. Researchers will address this need by conducting a series of synthesis efforts to (1) identify and describe known management questions and information needs of stakeholders related to grasslands; (2) assess the state-of-the-science on climate change and variability in the northern Great Plains region; and (3) describe ecological responses to climate variability and change across the grasslands, including tipping points, changing fire patterns, spreading invasive species, changing species distributions, habitat fragmentation, and other changes in ecological communities. This project supports resource managers by providing them with the scientific information needed to make best-practice management decisions about northern Great Plains grasslands and will foster relationships with the conservation and management organizations that will utilize this science to make decisions about public lands.

The Climate Adaptation Science Centers have conducted numerous training and skills development activities to support tribal and indigenous partners as they seek to use scientific information and techniques to understand and respond to climate change impacts. Because these activities were generated in different CASC regions, with different tribal / indigenous stakeholders, climate change contexts, and training needs, and because the CASC network encourages innovation, these activities were not developed or implemented in a nationally consistent format. This project seeks to identify relevant activities, gather related materials and links that might benefit others seeking to implement similar activities, provide a basic assessment of content and skills provided across the network, and identify significant apparent gaps in providing these critical skills. It is expected that future phases of this work will seek to develop a more-coherent training curriculum and framework.

Abstract (from DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln): Native American peoples of the Northern and Central Plains have long endured harsh climate conditions, such as floods and droughts, and they possess valuable traditional knowledges that have enhanced their resilience to these extreme events. However, in recent times, limited capacity to adapt to a rapidly changing climate combined with a lack of resources have increased tribes’ vulnerability to climate extremes and their associated impacts. In response, a number of projects have been developed to assist tribes with their self-identified climate- and drought-related needs, particularly in the context of on-reservation decision-making. In this case study, we present an engagement strategy that was piloted for the tribes of the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming and replicated for other tribes across the Northern and Central Plains. We found that frequent, face-to-face interactions between tribal and scientific communities builds relationships and trust between these two groups. We also found that climate capacity-building projects that include a diverse team of physical and social scientists, as well as tribal members, provide the greatest benefit to tribes. Finally, we found that these capacity-building projects can help reinforce tribal sovereignty.

Native American tribes are interested in managing their homelands for future generations, using both Indigenous and western science to make decisions in culturally appropriate ways. In particular, there is interest in strategic grazing management as a natural climate solution to strengthen the resilience of grasslands to a changing climate. This includes the restoration of free-ranging bison as well as the management of cattle (and domestic bison) in ways that approximate wild bison grazing behavior, to capture similar ecological and climate change benefits.   Despite the growing interest in grazing management as a tool for grassland resilience and soil health, there has not been a systematic synthesis that directly relate to bison and cattle management decisions being made by Tribes and First Nations. Furthermore, the existing evidence is framed from a western scientific perspective and does not account for the rich knowledge of Indigenous science and cultural practice. Given the growing movement for Indigenous-held lands to be managed in culturally-appropriate ways, it is crucial that efforts to develop management recommendations take both Indigenous and western science into account.   To address these needs, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Blackfeet Nation are partnering to launch an Indigenous Scholars Hub that will bring together Blackfeet Nation decision makers and Indigenous graduate students to: 1) co-create a synthesis and future research plan on bison and cattle grazing as a tool for climate adaptation and 2) link Indigenous and western science on grazing to inform on-going land use planning, bison restoration, and cattle grazing management decisions. Results of this review will be shared with other Native American tribes also interested in the topic.  The Indigenous Scholars Hub will be a pilot for weaving together Indigenous and western science, provide key information for decision-makers, and create a mentoring networking to support early career Indigenous researchers who wish to contribute to durable conservation of their homelands. 

Pinyon-juniper woodlands are important ecosystems in the western U.S. that provide numerous critical environmental, economic, and cultural benefits. For example, pinyon pines are a significant cultural resource for multiple Native American Tribes and provide necessary habitat for plants and wildlife (including at risk species, such as the pinyon-jay). Despite their importance, stress put on pinyon-juniper woodlands by wildfires and other interacting effects of climate change are causing major population declines of these woodland trees. Such changes to pinyon-juniper woodlands lead to uncertainty for land managers on best practices for protecting these ecosystems from stand replacing fire (where most or all of the trees are killed), and restoring pinyon-juniper communities when fire does occur. To address these uncertainties, researchers are collaborating with a diverse set of land managers, scientists and tribal partners to answer two questions: (1) How does a holistic understanding of the ways tree thinning and fire affect pinyon-juniper woodlands lead to improved management options? and (2) What innovative restoration techniques can restore pinyon-juniper communities following fire in the face of climate change? The research team will use long-term observational data and sites managed by federal and tribal partners to explore ecosystem health and regeneration patterns over pinyon-juniper woodlands that have experienced thinning or fire. This will include assessments of rare and threatened plant species. The researchers will also test a suite of novel restoration options following past fires to provide tools for pinyon-juniper restoration success in places where natural post-fire regrowth is not occurring. Taken together, this inclusive research project will address some of the most pressing resource management information needs in order to develop strategies to sustain pinyon-juniper woodlands and the many services they provide.