Native Notes

The UNDP’s Human Development Report 2007/2008, Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world can be downloaded at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-2008/.

If you’ve already plowed through the IPCC reports and 20 year’s worth of other climate change literature, you’re not going to find much that’s new in the HDR 2007/2008 narrative and because it’s a UN work the recommendations, some may say sermonizing, are directed toward the nation states. 

But there’s sound advice for Indian tribes and other indigenous peoples that can be gleaned from the report.  I especially like the suggestion that nations, but for us, tribes and indigenous peoples, should be taking action now to conduct assessments of the risks posed by climate change to public health, economies, political and cultural integrity “to be followed by the mobilization of resources to create an enabling environment for risk management.”  I suggest that an even more daunting challenge is for Indian tribes to identify the risks that climate change poses.

We’re involved in a couple of related activities with long-time colleagues that we hope will trigger responses suggested by HDR 2007/2008.  The first is the August 19-20, 2008 Workshop on Adaptive Governance and Climate Change sponsored by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management.  The workshop is subtitled, “Climate Change is Real: Leadership and Planning are Optional” and incorporates themes such as governance and planning for continuity of services.  We’re working with Stuart Harris and Dr. Barbara Harper of the CTUIR Department of Science and Engineering on this effort.  They’ve been at the forefront in incorporating cultural factors in risk assessment methodologies.

The other activity is the symposium on risk assessment, risk management and indigenous peoples: legal, scientific, social, and cultural contexts which will take place at Second World Congress on Risk in Guadalajara in June.  The symposium organizer, Dr. Elaine M. Faustman directs the University of Washington’s Institute for Risk Analysis and Risk Communication which aims to enhance risk assessment methods and their scientific underpinnings.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 6:50 am and is filed under Risk, Climate Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.