Climate adaptation practitioners are increasingly incorporating broader sources of knowledge into planning efforts. This allows resulting decisions to consider the most complete data and information available. Yet engaging with knowledge holders, particularly those from Tribal and Indigenous communities, requires special considerations to be ethical and effective.   

In 2020, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe developed a Climate Action Plan (CAP) to protect the health and livelihood of communities experiencing increased warming and droughts. The Tribal Nation then partnered with the North Central CASC on forward-looking climate adaptation efforts, cumulating in a climate change scenario planning workshop held in the fall of 2023. Workshop participants worked together to incorporate remote sensed data, climate modeling, and Indigenous Knowledge, gathered through Tribal-led interviews, to consider how climate change could impact current and future resource management practices within the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. 

A new perspective article led by North Central CASC scientists shares reflections on the ongoing collaboration and climate change scenario workshop. The authors discuss the key considerations for collecting and integrating Indigenous Knowledge into decision-making processes and how these processes played out in their work with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. These considerations may also support other climate adaptation practitioners and researchers who would like to incorporate Indigenous Knowledge and foster ethical collaboration that benefits tribes, federal agencies, and environmental managers.