Executive Summary

The National Indian Health Board offered its inaugural Climate Ready Tribes initiative from 2020 to 2023. Its goal was to recognize the outsized threat that climate change poses to American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes while harnessing the strengths and assets Tribes possess that support resilience and to build capacity to protect Tribes and their members from harm and adverse health effects. This effort is based on Tribes’ sovereign rights to self-determine their priorities and approaches to adapt to the effects of climate change. This lookback focuses on the experiences and efforts of three participating tribes: The Lummi Indian Nation, the Pala Band of Mission Indians, and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska. Each Tribe approached the challenge uniquely, reflecting their cultural heritage, environmental context, and specific needs. The Lummi Nation focused on safeguarding traditional food sources and providing real time information and data to ensure safer harvesting of shellfish particularly seasons of higher health risks from the effects of climate change. The Pala Band of Mission Indians concentrated on developing a comprehensive community-driven adaptation plan, addressing risks of droughts, wildfires and flooding in their region. The Sitka Tribe of Alaska, like the Lummi Nation, deeply connected to the ocean, worked on enhancing their capacity to monitor changes impacting their traditional diet, yet forging its own path and offering a different model.

These Tribal efforts were supported by the National Indian Health Board’s Climate Ready Tribes’ three primary activities: providing funding for local climate health work or research, hosting an Environmental Health and Climate Track at the National Tribal Public Health Summit, and disseminating educational materials through the Climate and Health Learning Community. The overarching goals included reducing climate-related morbidity and mortality in Tribal Nations. Emphasis and importance of building adaptive capacity, demonstrated during an unprecedented global pandemic, within Tribal governments and fostering collaboration and data and information sharing among a broad swathe of stakeholders was proven to be instrumental to successful project design and implementation.

The experience of these three Tribes, as captured in this lookback document, offer valuable lessons in Tribal approaches, community engagement, fostering partnerships, capacity-building and supporting Tribal community resilience. They underscore the importance of flexibility, proactive involvement of Tribal leadership, and stakeholder collaboration in easing the burden of adverse health effects resulting from climate change. While each approach is different, they offer models for Tribes and their programs to consider in designing and planning for climate change preparedness or response activities. The effects of climate change are more and more evident and post particular and significant risk to Tribes.

The work and effort of the Climate Ready Tribes initiative and this lookback is intended to provide models vital in shaping future responses and strategies for Tribes nationally.