Incorporating Indigenous Knowledges into Federal Research and Management: Best Practices for Engaging Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples Surrounding Indigenous Knowledges

In November 2022, the White House Office of Science and Policy released guidance on how Federal agencies can ethically acknowledge and incorporate Indigenous Knowledges (IK) into science, management, and decision-making. This first-of-its-kind document recognizes IK as an important body of knowledge contributing to a more complete understanding of the natural world. It also acknowledges the U.S. government's past history of marginalization of and resource extraction from Indigenous peoples and the impact this left on building trusting relationships.

In this webinar series, speakers will explore what it means to ethically engage with Indigenous Knowledges in resource management and conservation spaces. We will learn from Tribal and Indigenous communities about the frameworks they use to protect and share their knowledges, and from Federal agencies about how they navigate their responsibility to foster respectful, mutually beneficial relationships with knowledge holders.

We hope these sessions are of particular value to Federal employees seeking to build partnerships with Indigenous peoples and to Tribal citizens and Indigenous peoples seeking to understand resources and opportunities for collaborating with Federal partners.

For up-to-date information and to access webinar recordings and transcripts, please go to www.usgs.gov/casc/ikwebinars.

This webinar series is hosted by the National CASC in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Conservation Training Center, the USGS Office of Tribal Relations, and the CASC’s Tribal Climate Resilience Liaisons. Special thanks to Coral Avery (Bureau of Indian Affairs; Northwest CASC) for designing the graphics used in promotional materials for this series.

Sara Kahanamoku is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the Hawaiʻi Sea Grant Ulana ʻIke Center of Excellence, focusing on utilizing multiple knowledge systems to track historical climate and ecosystem cycles in Hawaiʻi as part of the Rising Voices, Changing Coasts (RVCC) National Indigenous and Earth Sciences Convergence Hub. RVCC has an overarching goal of facilitating convergence research on coastal hazards in a community context through co-production between social and earth sciences and Indigenous knowledge experts. Sara has conducted meta-research on equity in the process of science, including on racial disparities in funding at the National Science Foundation and on place-based science in Hawaiʻi.

Michael Durglo, Jr. is Department Head of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ (CSKT) Tribal Historic Department and has been a leader in climate change adaptation work for nearly a decade. He facilitated the development of a Flathead Reservation Climate Change Strategic Plan for CSKT, the third Tribe to do so in the United States. Particularly unique has been Michael’s all-inclusive and open approach towards climate planning. He has established monthly meetings of a Climate Change Advisory Committee and welcomes all stakeholders, both tribal and non-tribal. This has opened conversations among multiple jurisdictions, connecting people and adding value to solving the problems that will be faced by the impacts of climate change into the future. In 2016, Michael received the White House Champion of Change award and in 2017, Michael received the Climate Leadership Award for Natural Resources.