Hi, I’m Paige Vega, climate editor at Vox. For the past few months, I’ve been working with Joseph Lee, a New York City-based journalist and member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe, on a series exploring Indigenous solutions that address extreme weather and climate change. And today, on Indigenous Peoples Day, we released the project’s latest feature, a story that takes us to Idaho, where the Coeur d’Alene Tribe is undergoing a multi-decade effort to restore an important wetland on the reservation. Their recovery, driven by the return of ancestral food sources, could serve as a model for the rest of the country. You can read it here.
Stories like Coeur d’Alene’s highlight the value of Indigenous solutions as we deal with increasingly extreme weather and natural disasters and navigate the brutal effects of the climate crisis.
Globally, indigenous peoples have the smallest carbon footprints, According to the United NationsBut are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change because they live in geographically high-risk areas.
At the same time, these communities are key sources of knowledge and understanding of climate change impacts, responses and adaptation. Their traditional knowledge — from predicting weather patterns to improving agricultural practices and managing natural resources — with a focus on sustainability and resilience — is increasingly recognized at the international level as an important means of addressing climate change.
I spoke with Lee about the process of exploring various tribes’ climate dilemmas, and why the alternative posture they’re taking can offer us a uniquely humble, approachable, and nature-first holistic approach—something we can all remember.
Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Page Vega: Let’s talk about the project Changes with our climate And how it came to be. What were some of your goals — did you really want to hit home with these stories?
Joseph Lee: We wanted to see the different ways indigenous peoples are adapting to climate change and extreme weather. Over the years, I have heard a lot about Aboriginal people Climate change is at the forefront And Indigenous knowledge and land stewardship is good for the environment, so we wanted to explore in depth what that actually looks like in different Indigenous communities. In each story, we really wanted to focus on a specific community, to show the diversity of Indian country, the challenges tribes face, but also the range of creative solutions they’re working on.
How do you draw on your own perspectives and life experiences as well as your professional experiences with Indigenous communities?
Writing this series has given me many opportunities to think about my own tribe Aquinnah Wampanoag. For example, while writing about the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s water potato harvest, in our story published today in Vox, I was reminded of my tribe’s annual cranberry harvest, which I had just joined. Or when I visited the Shinnecock tribe in August, I couldn’t help but see a parallel between their tension with their wealthy Hamptons neighbors and my tribe’s experience on Martha’s Vineyard. I think my personal experience can help me think about what questions to ask, but my background doesn’t give me any secret codes for understanding other tribes. Every tribe is different, and my goal for this series was to show the specific situations faced by each featured community.
What is the value of traditional environmental knowledge and indigenous solutions? What can all communities learn from how tribes individually struggle with extreme weather and climate change?
Indigenous traditional environmental knowledge is based on experience of the land and environment. The Coeur d’Alene tribe, for example, relied on the memory of a beloved elder when they began reconnecting old stream channels in their wetland restoration project. And our first piece [about how an Alaskan tribe dependent on sea ice is adapting to rapid warming]Roberta Tuurraq Glenn-Borade, an Iñupiaq researcher, told me how she’s been collecting local observations of the climate in the Alaskan Arctic to help keep a detailed record for the future. That is indigenous knowledge, he said — an understanding developed over years. All these stories show how it is constantly evolving and looking forward. Indigenous knowledge is never set in stone, and in the face of climate change Indigenous peoples are adapting more than ever.
What were some highlights or unexpected insights that blew you away?
One of the things that strikes me is that Aboriginal people have been saying and doing these things for years, so the question becomes what is stopping them. 1728903330. Colonialism can sometimes seem abstract, but there are many concrete examples, whether it is Hampton’s systematic racism against the Shinnecock nation or the legacy of the appropriation policy of the Coeur d’Alene reservation. Government policies have made it very difficult for tribals to adapt to climate change. Threats to tribal sovereignty can also be seen as threats to climate adaptation.
On the other hand, despite the legacy of colonialism, some of these solutions are really straightforward ideas, such as bringing better fire. [also known as controlled burns] Returning to the country after decades of fire suppression policies. There’s a lesson here that we don’t have to overcomplicate these ideas, that we don’t just have to listen to people who have been doing it for generations, but support them or get out of their way.
What is one lesson or takeaway you want readers to leave with?
I heard two things while reporting these stories. The first is that we cannot control nature, trying to impose our will on the environment has never worked. For example, for the Shinnecock Nation of Long Island, they understand that no matter what they do, they cannot stop the water from rising. So they are working with that knowledge to find a solution that will work for their community.
The second is that we need to think more long-term. Real change is going to take generations. Many of the indigenous people I spoke to for this series talked about how they don’t expect to see the results of their work in their lifetime, but they believe in it anyway. The people of the Coeur d’Alene tribe spoke of how previous generations of tribal leaders fought for legal justice but never saw the fruits of their labor, and now this generation realizes they may never fully return the salmon or see their wetlands. Recovery complete.
I think that kind of commitment to an endeavor you’ll never see complete is something we can all learn from.
