Article: Ancestral voices shape climate-change strategies

Ancestral voices shape climate-change strategies (Nevada Today, 6/23)

A research project spearheaded by a team at the University of Nevada, Reno, that was launched this month seeks to understand the ways that tribal communities in the Great Basin and the Southwest met the challenges of drought and climate change through the centuries. Among the keys to the success of that program will be “two-world walkers,” researchers whose personal roots in tribal culture allow them to blend tribal knowledge with cutting-edge scientific and social research. Dubbed “Native Waters on Arid Lands,” the five-year, $4.5 million program funded by a competitive grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture will provide tribes with analytical tools to understand the actions they can take to meet drought-related challenges in today’s complex political and social environment. Traditional ecological knowledge may include stories of an epic drought in North America in the 1500s, said Beverley Ramsey, executive director of Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences with Desert Research Institute, who is part of the research team.