The Tribal Resilience Action Database
The Tribal Resilience Action Database project brings together a group of project partners and advisors representing more than a dozen Tribes across North America to create a culturally sensitive, easily accessible, and useful database of climate adaptation strategies and community examples already published by Tribes that can be used to inform ongoing and new climate adaptation and resilience work in Tribal communities.
Core Team
The core team was led by the Upper Snake River Tribes (USRT) Foundation and included the Upper Columbia United Tribes (UCUT) and Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC). These three consortiums represent 15 Tribes in the Pacific Northwest Region and guided the overall project development process. Adaptation International provided technical and logistical support for the Tribal outreach efforts, back-end data analysis, and working group and advisory group meetings. Valice is the web design partner and created the backend database, online digital portal, and other web products for testing, refinement, and publication.
Advisory Group
The project was guided by two advisory groups. The first is a National Tribal Advisory Group consisting of 22 representatives from Tribal Nations and Tribal allies in organizations and institutions. The group participated in a series of four workshops over the course of 18 months to 1) help scope and provide input on the database design and Tribal outreach/engagement process; 2) review initial design options and provide guidance on search feature functionality; 3) review the preliminary web portal; and 4) review the final web portal prior to release.
The National Tribal Advisory Group consisted of representatives from:
| Affiliated Tribes of the Northwest Indians | https://atnitribes.org/ |
| Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center | https://akcasc.org/ |
| Alaska Tribal Resilience Learning Network | https://akcasc.org/aktrln/ |
| Bureau of Indian Affairs | https://www.bia.gov/ |
| Bureau of Reclamation | https://www.usbr.gov/ |
| Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington | https://cig.uw.edu/ |
| Climate Science Alliance | https://www.climatesciencealliance.org/ |
| Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians | https://www.cowcreek-nsn.gov/ |
| Environmental Policy Innovation Center | https://www.policyinnovation.org/ |
| Geos Institute | https://geosinstitute.org/ |
| Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission | https://glifwc.org/ |
| Gullah Geechee Nation | https://gullahgeecheenation.com/ |
| Institute for Tribal and Environmental Professionals | https://www7.nau.edu/itep/main/Home/ |
| Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange | https://likenknowledge.org/ |
| Native American Fish and Wildlife Society | https://www.nafws.org/ |
| Northcentral Climate Adaptation Science Center | https://nccasc.colorado.edu/ |
| Pacific Northwest Tribal Climate Change Network | https://tribalclimate.uoregon.edu/ |
| Rosebud Sioux Tribe | https://www.rosebudsiouxtribe-nsn.gov/ |
| Rising Voices | https://risingvoices.ucar.edu/ |
| South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center | https://southcentralclimate.org/ |
| San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe | https://www.sanjuanpaiute-nsn.gov |
| USDA Adaptation Partners | https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/adaptation/adaptation-planning/adaptation-partners |
The Tribal staff members from USRT, CRITFC, and UCUT also provided guidance through a regional advisory committee. The Core Team did a series of two engagements with each of these consortiums to help develop the initial design and approach to the website development and review and provide input on the website functionality.
Funding
In 2020, the Upper Snake River Tribes (USRT) Foundation received a two-year grant from the U.S. Geological Survey/Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC) to support this work (COVID delayed the start of the project). Overall, the project supports two of the NW CASC’s Research priorities: Managing At-Risk Species and Habitats and the Human Dimensions of Climate Adaptation. This project will run until the end of 2023.
The development of the web portal was made possible by a generous grant from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) through the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, which aims to “…deliver science to help fish, wildlife, water, land and people adapt to a changing climate.” The Climate Adaptation Science Centers are a national network of regional science centers focused on supporting natural resource decision-making in a changing climate. Overall, the project supports two of the NW CASC’s Research priorities: Managing At-Risk Species and Habitats and the Human Dimensions of Climate Adaptation.
USRT would also like to acknowledge the contributions from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Environmental Protection Agency, who provided personnel funding for staff to work on the Tribal Resilience Action Database.
