No images? Click here
Center for Environmentally Threatened Communities
We support communities to address environmental threats and achieve their vision for a safe, healthy, and sustainable future.
Newsletter Issue 32, February 2020
Four You Should Know From This Issue
- Community leaders in Quinhagak, Alaska created a vision statement that will guide their adaptation efforts.
- Overcrowded schools are taking priority over erosion-threatened schools in state funding.
- Sally Russell Cox has worked for over a decade to develop strong relationships and partnerships in order to help Alaska Native communities plan for increasingly severe environmental threats.
- The State of Alaska Coastal Hazards Program has a new project that will fill data gaps for North Slope communities.
Envisioning a Sustainable Future in Quinhagak, Alaska
Just as a drum is bound by the threads that attach the skin to the frame, a community is held together by the threads of health, home, environment, infrastructure, and lifestyle. This interconnectivity makes a drum, whose beat is the pulse of many Alaska Native dances, a powerful image to visualize community resilience, says Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer with the Alaska Native Health Consortium (ANTHC). Schaeffer uses the “Resilience Drum” metaphor to help communities to develop vision statements to guide their adaptation plans with indigenous wisdom.
Quinhagak is a village of 700 on the Bering Sea coast. The community’s location feeds a rich subsistence lifestyle, but also increasingly threatens infrastructure. After reviewing ANTHC’s Threatened Infrastructure Assessment Report, leaders in Quinhagak asked Schaeffer to help the community build consensus about the next steps. Schaeffer returned to lead a visioning meeting, where she guided the attendees through exercises that looked back seven generations for wisdom from ancestors and to develop a unifying vision for the community.
Jackie Schaeffer leads an adaptation planning visioning session in Quinahagak, Alaska.
Vision Statement: Quinhagak, in response to climate change, will accept new teachings, listen more attentively, involve our kids, use our qannryyutit to adapt with a Yup’ik mindset for the future survival of our traditional ways, and respect our land and elders.
“It’s a really healthy statement that covers a lot of what we believe,” Jacki Cleveland, Quinhagak’s Natural Resource Director said. She would like the statement to guide the community and be read at the beginning and end of community meetings.
Recent Events
Filling North Slope Data Gaps to Assess Coastal Flooding and Erosion
DGGS will fill coastal flood and erosion data gaps for North Slope communities including Point Lay, shown above. Credit: Matt Nolan.
Communities along the coast of the North Slope of Alaska are subject to flooding and erosion resulting from thawing permafrost and increased storm and wave activity due to longer durations of ice-free ocean. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys (DGGS) has begun a new state-funded project to fill data gaps at coastal communities along the North Slope coastline to provide the baseline scientific data necessary to assess flood and erosion hazards.
Initial efforts will focus on Wainwright and Point Lay, and involve collecting tidal datums (a reference elevation of sea level) and nearshore bathymetry as well as calculating the erosion rate at cross-shore transects (straight lines perpendicular to the shore along which data is collected) fronting community infrastructure. This work will lead to better coastal hazard mapping and vulnerability assessments to show what land will be lost; provide timelines; give residents and emergency responders advance notice of flood events; provide defendable post-storm disaster assessments; and support the development of solutions.
Solutions Spotlight: Sally Russell Cox
Here, representatives of Kivalina, Shaktoolik, and Shishmaref surround Sally Russell Cox (middle row, wearing a black sweater), after they completed a project to develop resiliency plans for all three communities. Credit: Sally Russell Cox, DCRA.
Sally works with the Community Resilience and Climate Adaptation program with the State of Alaska Division of Community and Regional Affairs.
“There is nothing else I would rather be doing professionally. I stumbled into this work, but I know that it is just the right place for me. My heart and soul go into the work I do.” – Sally Russell Cox
Sally Cox is fascinated by connections. Connections among people, between people and their environments, and between present and past. This interest is what drew her to the field of community planning, is why she spends her free time deep in genealogical research, and is what fuels her passion for working with Alaska Native villages to plan for the impacts of a rapidly changing environment.
Sally firmly believes that connecting community leaders with decision-makers is the most effective way to bring a community’s vision for a healthy and sustainable future to life. In 2006, she was only three years into her position with the State of Alaska’s Division of Community and Regional Affairs when the Village of Newtok requested help with their relocation. Sally convened the Newtok Planning Group, whose goal is to connect community leaders to state and federal agencies with financial and technical resources. Seeing the success of this model motivated Sally to continue to help more Alaskan communities plan their response to environmental threats.
Sally’s work is firmly rooted in human rights and a desire to make others’ lives better. She is passionate about working with Alaska Native communities to preserve their connection to their land that has been sustained over thousands of years. In order to create solutions for the future, Sally suggests we look to the rich knowledge of Alaska’s indigenous communities, who have been resilient to change for generations. Instead of implementing Western solutions universally, such as building infrastructure that is well suited to the Lower 48, Sally would like to see agencies work in partnership with communities to develop innovative solutions such as modular, moveable infrastructure and flood-resistant designs that incorporate indigenous knowledge.
Upcoming Events
Contract Administration & Procurement Training
This three-day training is for Tribal members and professionals to understand and meet program requirements for procurement and contract administration.
- March 17-19, 2020
- Anchorage, Alaska
- To register, click here.
For other AAHA training opportunities, view the full calendar here.
2020 National Tribal & Indigenous Climate Conference
All Tribal members in the United States are invited to attend the first National Tribal & Indigenous Climate Conference hosted by the Institute of Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP) with support from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Tribal Resilience Program.
- August 31 – September 4, 2020
- St. Paul, Minnesota
- Proposals to present at the conference are due April 3, 2020. To submit a presentation proposal, click here.
- Registration opens in mid-March.
News Roundup
State Awards LKSD $34 Million to Build New School in Eek, but Overlooks other Sites in Need: Overcrowded schools are taking priority over erosion-threatened schools in state funding. The State of Alaska could reevaluate the scoring system to support communities who are in “emergency” situations.
Use-Inspired Science for At-Risk Alaskan Communities: In order to help Alaskan communities such as Shishmaref, climate science needs to be adapted to be useful for local decision making.
This Alaska Community is Losing Sea Ice: Watch this video from NOVA focused on Shishmaref, Alaska, and how a decline in sea ice affects the community’s ability to engage in subsistence hunting and live in their current location.
About the Center for Environmentally Threatened Communities
The goal of the Center for Environmentally Threatened Communities (CETC) is to support rural Alaskan communities experiencing infrastructure impacts associated with flooding, erosion, and permafrost degradation. The team does this primarily through grant writing, technical assistance, and project coordination.
ETC@anthc.org | (907) 729-4521 | www.anthc.org/cetc | 4500 Diplomacy Drive, Suite 561, Anchorage, AK 99508
If you enjoyed this issue, please forward this email to a friend.
