How the Alaska CASC supports Tribes
We are home to the Alaska Tribal Resilience Learning Network
Established in 2020 the Alaska Tribal Resilience Learning Network is a community of learning, sharing, technical assistance, training, and support for Alaska Tribes, Leadership, and Indigenous communities as they respond and adapt to the current and future impacts of climate change. The network provides a mechanism for multi-directional information sharing. Alaska Native organizations can share information with one another about successful adaptation approaches. They can communicate directly with the network and AK CASC researchers about priority areas and research needs. Researchers can reach out to the network to help deliver the best available science to Alaska Native communities for use in planning, proposals, and public comments.
We host four Tribal liaisons
We partner with the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society to host AK CASC Tribal Resilience Liaisons. These liaisons serve as a conduit between us and the needs of Alaska’s 229 federally recognized tribes as well as Alaska Native non-profits, corporations, and other organizations.
Lori Petrauski
Interior Alaska
Kristi Tapio-Harper
Southcentral Alaska
Malinda Chase
Interior Alaska
Jolene Auliye
Western Alaska
Our tribal liaisons are funded both as part of the AK CASC host agreement with the USGS, and through funding from the US Bureau of Indian Affairs Tribal Climate Resilience branch.
We support Tribal information needs
Our researchers partner with Tribes on research
AK CASC researchers have partnered with Alaska Native communities and organizations to answer research questions on climate adaptation planning in Southeast Alaska communities, climate change impacts to pollinators and berries across western Alaska, and harmful algal bloom monitoring in subsistence shellfish harvests. We seek to put the listening and learning that our team does to work to provide the best available science to Tribes to answer questions related to community and land relationship planning. If you or your community has a research need or interest in co-developing a project, reach out to one of our liaisons, or our communications team.By working together, future projects can create more useful and responsive science.
Past Tribal partners in AK CASC-funded research have included Chugach Regional Resources Commission, Metlakatla Indian Community, the Organized Village of Kake, Chugachmiut Tribal Consortium, and more. The Alaska CASC is also currently partnering with the Northern Latitudes Partnerships and the Sustainable Southeast Partnership to better connect to the climate adaptation science needs of federal agencies, rural communities, and Tribes across the state.
By listening, we do our work better
An AK CASC-led research project, the Integrated Ecosystem Model, in combination with lessons learned from our work on the Building Resilience Today project drove the development of a new web tool with our partners at SNAP - Northern Climate Reports. In the process of creating the NCR researchers, including data managers, better understood the areas of interest for Alaska Native communities, and the value brought by traditional place names. As a result, this data tool integrates information from the Alaska Native Language Center to provide traditional place names on every data query for named points in Alaska. The tool also provides summaries over ethnolinguistic regions, corporation lands, and First Nations traditional territories and protected areas to provide information summaries over areas important to Tribal groups. The consistent engagement and relationship-building done by the AK CASC team helps us serve all of our key audiences better and build more accessible and transparent science products.
We support Tribal communication needs
We have worked to build relationships across the state with Tribal leaders, and the AK CASC regularly attends regional climate and adaptation forums such as the Alaska Forum on the Environment and the Alaska Tribal Conference on Environmental Management. The Alaska CASC and the Alaska Tribal Resilience E-Bulletin also collate a monthly E-bulletin of events, resources, and news related to climate adaptation across the state specifically for tribes.