Pacific Northwest nations are receiving state and federal funding to combat climate change
[ad_1]
Coastal nations in the Pacific Northwest are experiencing some of the worst effects of climate change — from rising seas to extreme heat — but face a series of barriers to receiving federal funds meant to help them adapt, a report released Monday said.
Tribes are leaders in the fight against climate change in their region, but as they seek funding for specific projects to address its effects, such as relocating a village threatened by rising waters, they often cannot provide the same funding required by many grants or the staff needed or struggle with strict application requirements, according to a report by the Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative. If they do get funding, it’s often a small amount that can only be used for specific projects where the work is often all-encompassing, the report said.
“Trying to do projects by putting together grants with different needs and different lines attached, without the number of employees is a challenge,” said Robert Knapp, manager of environmental planning for the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe in northwest Washington, the report said.
The collaboration, sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, spent two years holding listening sessions with 13 nations along the Pacific Coast of Oregon and Washington, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Puget Sound. Communities face major challenges from flooding and soil erosion, rising stream temperatures, declining snow, extreme heat events and increased wildfire risk.
Apart from funding challenges, the interviewees also described not having enough staff to adequately respond to climate change and the inability at times to collaborate with local and national governments and universities in this project due to their remote locations. They also say it can be difficult to explain the impact of climate change to people who don’t live in their own communities.
But as they worked to restore salmon habitats affected by warming waters or relocate their homes, financial gaps and problems were key concerns.
A representative of the nation, which was not identified in the report, said that it was unable to hire a grant writer and had to rely on the biology department to navigate the maze of grant applications. Someone mentioned that it depends on 15 different financiers to build the fishery.
“This is a historic moment for national and federal investment in climate action, and national priorities need to be considered when making decisions about how to direct these investments,” said Meade Krosby, senior author of the report. “I hope this will help inform how this work is done, how these funds are directed, so that they actually respond to the barriers facing the tribes and help remove some of those barriers so that the tribes can get a good job. done.”
Most of the nations included in the report have completed publicly available reports on the impacts of climate change, and some have developed detailed evacuation plans as rising waters threaten buildings, or entire villages.
The Quinault Indian Nation, on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, has a plan to relocate its largest village. The multimillion-dollar effort relies in part on federal and state grants and the constraints that come with them, Gary Morishima, Quinault’s technical advisor for natural resources, explained in the report.
Some nations have expressed concern about competing with other nations for funding when cooperation is the most important part of tackling climate change. Indigenous countries share borders and coastlines, and the impact of climate change on those countries does not stop at any border, the report said.
Amelia Marchand, a resident of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and another author of the report, explained that it is up to the federal government to fulfill its obligation to trust the tribes.
“The agreement must support and promote and ensure that what the nations need to continue to exist is maintained,” he said. “And that’s one of the problems of not having this coordinated organizational response because different agencies do different things.”
Millions of dollars have gone to coastal nations, and the report said more is still needed. The report cited a 2020 Bureau of Indian Affairs report that estimates tribes in the lower 48 states will need $1.9 billion over the next half century for infrastructure needs related to climate change.
Amidst all the challenges, the nations of the Pacific Northwest are still at the forefront of climate change and have a lot to teach other communities, Marchand said.
“Finding ways to make their development happen in their tribes and communities despite those obstacles is one of the most encouraging and hopeful stories,” she said.
-Hallie Golden, Associated Press
[ad_2]
Source link
