In partnership with the New Mexico Tribal Resilience Action Network and Eight Northern Pueblos Indian Council, EFCWest is supporting efforts to build a Tribally developed Southwest Tribal Climate Adaptation Menu.
The concept for the Southwest Menu grew out of another Menu that was developed by Tribes in the Great Lakes area of the northeastern US (found here: https://glifwc.org/ClimateChange/TribalAdaptationMenuV1.pdf). The original Menu was developed to respond to what northeastern Tribes felt was a tone deaf approach to the climate adaptation needs of their communities. While there are copious menus and tools that address various elements of climate adaptation, there were none that specifically aligned with northeastern Tribal approaches to resilience. For example, workbooks about removing climate driven invasive species are negated when Tribal elders and traditionalists will not accept the basic premise that a living being can be invasive. Tools developed for forest preservation do not incorporate the protection of traditional forest uses that are critical to Tribal culture. Thus, appropriate language, cultural practices, traditional knowledge and historic traditions are missing from the current material. In response the first Tribal Climate Adaptation Menu was created.
However, the southwestern Tribes, environments and climate impacts are quite different, and so a southwest Menu is being initiated. The impacts will be threefold:
Impact #1: Southwestern Tribes will not be forced to be reliant on existing tools that were not developed by or for Native Americans, thus achieving greater sovereignty.
Impact #2: Southwestern Tribes will take control of an adaptation process that will be appropriate to their reality and protect their cultures and knowledge.
Impact #3: Southwestern Tribes will become more resilient through a holistic human centered approach that aligns with their unique world view.
