Dibaginjigaadeg Anishinaabe Ezhitwaad

TRIBAL CLIMATE ADAPTATION MENU

Tribal Resilience

Many climate adaptation planning tools fail to address the unique needs, values, and cultures of Indigenous communities. The Tribal Climate Adaptation Menu, developed by a diverse group of collaborators representing tribal, academic, intertribal and government entities in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, provides a framework to integrate indigenous and traditional knowledge, culture, language, and history into the climate adaptation planning process.

The Menu is an extensive collection of climate change adaptation actions for natural resource management, organized into tiers of general and more specific ideas. Although this first version of the Menu was created based on Ojibwe and Menominee perspectives, languages, concepts, and values, it was intentionally designed to be adaptable to other Indigenous communities, allowing for the incorporation of their language, knowledge, and culture.

Guiding Principles for Interacting with Tribes

Primarily developed for the use of Indigenous communities, Tribal natural resource agencies and their non-Indigenous partners, the Tribal Climate Adaptation Menu may be useful in bridging communication barriers for non-Tribal persons or organizations interested in Indigenous approaches to climate adaptation and the needs and values of Tribal communities.

Importance of Human/Non-Human Relationships & Approaching Knowledge Holders

Indigenous knowledges and ways recognize plant, animal, and other spirit beings as our original teachers. Although conventional land management favors direct intervention, with humans controlling the natural world, Indigenous perspectives emphasize the importance of learning from other beings and natural communities. This strategy involves taking time to observe and learn from the beings in a given area. This idea may become even more important in an era of climate change, as shifting conditions result in cascading ecosystem impacts and unexpected outcomes.

Bowl of medicine by Emerald Otradovec

Cultural leaders, community members, harvesters, elders, and other key individuals have important knowledges and perspectives that can inform climate adaptation activities. Taking time to build relationships and properly consult with the broader community will result in more informed decisions and more support for adaptation actions. The Tribal Climate Adaptation Menu provides readers with mindful practices of reciprocity and etiquette on how to offer Asemaa/nāēqnemaw (tobacco) when asking knowledge holders for information.

Traditional Anishinaabe  asemaa consists of a mixture of plants indigenous to tribal homelands. Native tobacco, known as apaakozigan, may include a wide variety of blends, appearing different in color and composition.
(Photo by Charlie Rasmussen, GLIFWC.)

Manidoons Leonard Moose of Mille Lacs and Mary Moose of Canada. Manidoons has since walked on but gifted many with a large amount of knowledge before his passing.
(Photo by Melonee Montano, GLIFWC.)

Adaptation Strategies and Approaches

Supporting Tribal Engagement in the Environment

Climate adaptation can both encourage and rely on relationships among tribal communities and the lands, waters, and other beings of an area. Supporting and revitalizing these relationships may improve both human and non-human community health and lead to greater community involvement and ownership over land management processes and decisions. Increasing awareness of opportunities for tribal members to use tribal and public lands for harvesting, culture, and recreation will increase knowledge of and relationships with an area, which may lead to greater engagement with adaptation actions and their potential success.

Early each fall semester, native students from Ashland, Mille Lacs, Lac Courte Oreilles and other schools attend manoomin camp on Ceded Territory wild rice waters. Bringing the classroom outdoors replicates century-old Ojibwe traditions and creates opportunities for youth to acquire essential harvest skills. 
(Photo by Charlie Rasmussen, GLIFWC.)

Inventory and monitoring programs can help assess changes as they occur, which can be crucial when making decisions about climate adaptation. Inventory and monitoring programs are also a way to involve community members, school groups, and professional staff to the shared process of observing and caring for the local environment.

Madison Bear & Katie Carlson assisting with GLIFWC’s plant phenology study.
(Photo by Hannah Panci, GLIFWC.)

Tribal input and involvement can influence local- to landscape-scale management decisions when tribes effectively partner with county, state, and federal land management agencies in climate adaptation planning. All potential partners must work to address cultural and administrative barriers that may impede effective collaboration. Intertribal organizations and other “boundary-spanning” organizations can support these relationships and other co-management efforts.

At the 25th anniversary celebration of the Tribal–USDA Forest Service Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), leadership from GLIFWC and the Forest Service exchange gifts to commemorate many years of a healthy working relationship.
(Photo by Dylan Jennings, GLIFWC.)

Sustaining Ecological & Cultural Functions

Climate adaptation actions will need to focus on maintaining the integrity of ecosystems and supporting cultural relationships in a changing climate. The following images illustrate different ways to sustain native cultural and ecological systems such as hydrology and soils, riparian areas, nibi (water) quality, plant communities, cultural use of ishkode (fire) as a stewardship tool, and revitalization of cultural approaches to harvesting and caretaking.

A prescribed burn on Stockton Island in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore to reintroduce the cultural practice of burning. The burn was a joint effort between members of various tribes, agencies, and the National Park Service. (Photo by Melonee Montano, GLIFWC.)

Stockton Island, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Ashland County, Wisconsin. (Photo by Gidigaa bizhiw (Jerry Jondreau).)

Waabinigigoonsikwe (Charlotte Jondreau) harvesting birch bark on the Ottawa National Forest, 1842 Ceded Territory. (Photo by Gidagaa bizhiw (Jerry Jondreau).)

Little Carp River, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, Baraga County Michigan. (Photo by Gidigaa bizhiw (Jerry Jondreau).)

Reducing Biological & Anthropogenic Stressors
and Long-Term Impacts of Disturbances

Climate change will cause stress and changes within native ecosystems, and is projected to increase the potential for severe disturbance events, such as wildfire, extreme wind, and ice storms. These climate-driven stressors and disturbances can interact with other stressors that may already be occurring on the landscape, and have the potential to alter natural ecosystems over large landscapes. Reducing the effects of biological stressors such as bakaan ingoji gaondaadag (non-local beings) and human-caused stressors like water pollution and soil disturbance can be an important part of a climate adaptation plan. The Approaches that follow describe some of the different ways of maintaining clean air, clean water, and clean land that are detailed in the Tribal Climate Adaptation Menu.

Maintaining or improving the ability of communities to balance the effects of manidoonsag (little spirits), bakaan ingoji ga-ondaadag (non-local beings), and manage herbivory to promote regeneration of impacted beings.

Hunting both on and off reservations, tribal members maintain a significant relationship with waawaashkeshi (deer). (Photo by Dylan Jennings, GLIFWC.)

Mashkisibi Boys and Girls Club hand pulling garlic mustard along the Bad River upstream of Bad River reservation with GLIFWC staff. (Photo by Dara Unglaube, GLIFWC.)

A prescribed burn to promote fire-adapted beings on Stockton Island in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. The burn was a joint effort between tribal members of various tribes, agencies, and the National Park Service. Vern Northrup of the Fond du Lac Tribe in Minnesota (shown here holding the drip torch) was asked to start the fire. (Photo by Melonee Montano, GLIFWC.)

Jeff Grignon of Menominee Tribal Enterprises planting seedlings in an opening treated for oak wilt disease. (Photo by Kristen Schmitt, NIACS.)

One of the manidoonsag—a bumblebee on a dandelion, Dynamite Hill Farms, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, L’Anse, Michigan. (Photo by Gidigaa bizhiw (Jerry Jondreau).)

Altering community structure or composition to reduce risk or severity of major disturbances, revegetating sites after natural disturbance, and caring for cultural sites after a severe disturbance.

A prescribed burn to promote fire-adapted beings on Stockton Island in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. The burn was a joint effort between tribal members of various tribes, agencies, and the National Park Service. Vern Northrup of the Fond du Lac Tribe in Minnesota (shown here holding the drip torch) was asked to start the fire. (Photo by Melonee Montano, GLIFWC.)