Global climate change workshops at SKC begin next week

By Lailani Upham

PABLO — Salish Kootenai College is excited to be the host of the national "American Indian Alaska Native Climate Change" workshop next week.

It is a two-day symposium that will introduce and discuss the issues of climate change and the impacts that are affecting indigenous peoples in the northern hemisphere including the United States, Canada and Norway.

The symposium is designed to explore issues of adaptation from Native American cultural perspectives.

According to the Climate Institute, there has been a growth of interest in climate protection among Native Americans over the recent years. The Climate Institute is a network of global experts and scientists that promote global climate balance with practical and cooperative approaches.

The Institute reports that much has been facilitated by actions of environmental groups such as the National Wildlife Federation that organized a Tribal Lands Climate Conference in December 2006 with the Copopah Indian Tribe drawing leaders from more than 50 tribes to the Cocopah homeland on the Lower Colorado River, to discuss challenges of climate change posed to Native American communities.

Months before the Tribal Lands Conference a huge chunk of the findings have arose from scientists and activists within the Native American communities the Institute reports. The group of scientists and activists, made links to the tribal colleges, and formed an American Indian Alaskan Native Climate Change Working Group.

The catalyst in this effort has been Dr. Daniel Wildcat, who heads the Environmental Research Studies Center at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas; and will be speaking during the workshop. Wildcat is a member of the Muskogee tribe, and an accomplished scholar who writes on indigenous knowledge, technology, environment, and education. Dr. Wildcat is the co-author, with Vine Deloria, Jr., of "Power and Place: Indian Education in America" (Fulcrum, 2001), and co-editor, with Steve Pavlik, of "Destroying Dogma: Vine Deloria, Jr., and His Influence on American Society" (Fulcrum, 2006).

Dr. Wildcat will examine the impacts of climate change and extreme weather variability on Native Peoples and their homelands from an Indigenous cultural, spiritual, and scientific perspective.

"Indian reservations represent significant land holdings containing indigenous species that provide key indicator species to monitor and document climate change," Wildcat stated. "Our knowledge and work must be included in a meaningful and central way in any assessment of climate change. We need a legitimate seat at the table in policy discussions."

According the Climate Change Indigenous Peoples and Adaptation Group, the symposium is a blend of Indigenous ecological knowledge and the most current voices in climate change research. Native American students studying at tribal colleges and universities from across the country will have a chance to share their current research in climate-related science.

The Climate Institute reports that the most promising of all these developments is a very interesting move by the American Indian Alaskan Native Climate Change Working Group to make the tribal colleges the mainstay in an effort to empower individual tribes to be proactive in responding to climate change. Under the White House Initiative on Tribal Colleges and Universities funding is administered to 32 tribal colleges in the Midwest and Southeast through the Department of Education.

According to the American Indian Alaska Native Climate Change Working Group, each year the group faces increasing awareness and discussion of climate change as an issue by Native peoples; as a network. The Group concludes it is time to plug-in and join together as allies to prepare future generations of American Indian and Alaska Native earth science professionals in order to ensure that indigenous knowledge of landscapes and climates are valued, and incorporated into the tribal exercise of earth science research and education.

The workshop will begin on Thursday, April 28 at 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Friday, April 29 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the SKC Johnny Arlee/Victor Charlo Theatre.

For more information call Bill Swaney, SKC Natural Resources Department Head at (406) 675-4800, ext. 4896.