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The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Tribal Resilience Program provides federal aid for building climate change resilience through leadership engagement and capacity building to federally-recognized Tribal Nations and Alaska Native villages. These communities are particularly vulnerable to climate change as they rely on natural resources to sustain their families, communities, cultures, and traditional ways of life. Direct funding from the annual awards program supports tribes, tribal consortia, and tribal organizations through targeted resilience training, adaptation planning, vulnerability assessments, monitoring, capacity building, and youth engagement.

The BIA Tribal Resilience Program recently announced their 2020 funding awards. Funding of $14.4M has been awarded to federally-recognized Tribal Nations and Alaska Native villages to build resilience through adaptation, coastal management, and relocation, managed retreat, and protect-in-place planning efforts. Awards also support access to training and workshops. Two tribal organizations that received funding—the United and South Eastern Tribes (USET) and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI)—will be working in collaboration with the CASC network to carry out the following research:

United South & Eastern Tribes

Amount Funded: $148,000

Project Title: United South and Eastern Tribes: Tribal Climate Change Adaptation Workshop Series

Project Description: The United South and Eastern Tribes will hold a series of four sub-regional Tribal Climate Change Adaptation Workshops. The goal is to support teams of Tribal Nation delegates to build skills and gather information needed to develop climate adaptation planning. These workshops will be implemented with the assistance of regional Department of the Interior - Northeast and Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Centers and a culturally based Tribal climate change adaptation module known as the Tribal Adaptation Menu (TAM).

Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians

Amount Funded: $149,787

Project Title: 2021 Tribal Climate Adaptation Planning Camp

Project Description: ATNI, in collaboration with the NW Climate Adaptation Science Center, the University of Washington Climate Impact Group, and BIA Northwest Region will jointly design and host the 5th annual Northwest Climate Adaptation Planning Camp. The Camp will provide adaptation and vulnerability assessment planning support to ATNI tribal leaders, Tribal climate change coordinators, and health, education, natural resources, public works program managers, elders and tribal citizens to build skills and gather information needed to coordinate and implement the Tribal Adaptation Planning process.

View the full list of 2020 funding awards here.