Biden Administration Divvies Out $120 Million For Tribes To Adapt To Climate Risks

The funding will “help build lasting and generational change that Tribal communities need to stay resilient,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

The Biden administration on Thursday awarded more than $120 million to dozens of Native American and Alaska Native tribes to prepare for and adapt to the mounting impacts of climate change, including sea level rise, worsening droughts and wildfires and food security.

The investments are part of a broader administrative effort to rectify decades of “significant and systematic underfunding for tribal communities,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland told reporters on a press call. This disinvestment in Indigenous communities, along with Native Americans’ forced displacement from their historic lands, has left these groups particularly vulnerable to the dangers of a warming climate.

“As I’ve visited communities all across the country — from the Alaska village of Utqiagvik, to the Quinault Indian Nation in Washington, to the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana — I’ve seen firsthand how pressing the climate crisis is for Indigenous peoples and the urgency with which we must move to honor our obligations to tribal nations,” Haaland said. “As these communities face the increasing threat of rising seas, coastal erosion, storm surges, raging wildfires and devastation from other extreme weather events, our focus must be on bolstering climate resilience.”

The money will be distributed to 102 tribes and 8 tribal organizations, funding a total of 146 individual projects. It is the largest amount of annual funding ever awarded through the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Tribal Climate Resilience Annual Awards Program, which first launched in 2011.

Individual awards range from more than $4 million down to $89,000 and fund everything from relocation efforts and erosion prevention to water infrastructure and habitat restoration projects.