NOAA embraces traditional knowledge in new agreement with tribal college consortium

NOAA and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium signed a formal memorandum of understanding to advance “Indigenous Knowledge,” science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, and workforce training opportunities for tribal communities with the goal of building climate resilience.

What that indigenous knowledge is in the 21st Century seems to be a moving target. Does it involve Raven stealing the Sun? Turtle Island, the creation story? It’s unclear what native lore has to offer in informing science, but the Biden Administration is embracing it nonetheless, and spending taxpayer dollars to promote it.

“NOAA is excited to team up with the American Indian Higher Education Consortium to accelerate information-sharing aimed at building climate resilience, adaptation and co-production of knowledge in communities across the United States and tribal nations,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “Indigenous Knowledge has made it possible for Indigenous Nations to persist and thrive for millennia. These knowledge systems are needed more than ever to inform NOAA and our nation’s approach to environmental stewardship.”

“The American Indian Higher Education Consortium is honored to partner with NOAA to collaborate on shared goals and issues,” said Ahniwake Rose, AIHEC President and Chief Executive Officer. “This collaboration will create opportunities for our faculty and students, combine Indigenous Knowledge with western science to achieve strong climate resilience for our tribal nations and across the country and empower our tribal colleges and universities to be leaders in the ongoing response to climate change.”

The memorandum of understanding will lead to “incorporating Western science with traditional ecological knowledge at 35 accredited U.S. tribal colleges and universities.”

With a goal of making the U.S. and tribal nations more resilient to the risks of a “rapidly changing climate,” the new MOU is designed to identify opportunities for collaboration, including: 

• Identifying western science and Indigenous Knowledge priorities for the AIHEC, an organization that provides leadership and influences policy for 35 accredited U.S. tribal colleges and universities. 
• Building a network of faculty and students from tribal colleges, universities and NOAA climate leaders and scientists that will facilitate information exchanges, identify projects of interest and enhance student learning opportunities.
• Creating opportunities for NOAA to learn from faculty and students from tribal colleges and universities through coordinated partnerships that promote co-learning and co-development of knowledge, include community-driven research to advance NOAA’s mission to build a Climate-Ready Nation, as well as shared AIHEC-NOAA objectives.
• NOAA sharing with AIHEC any publicly available opportunities for faculty, students, interns and fellows, funding solicitations and board and committee opportunities with the goal of enhancing the capacity of indigenous and tribal communities to respond to climate change. In turn, AIHEC will share these educational and leadership opportunities through communication channels within tribal colleges and universities. 
• The AIHEC identifying for NOAA the training and educational needs of faculty and students at tribal colleges and universities to advance climate literacy and capacity for climate resilience.
• NOAA and the AIHEC working together to develop strategies to improve how NOAA’s student learning opportunities, climate services, funding solicitations and community engagement can best be tailored and sensitive to the needs of tribal nations and communities. 

The entire taxpayer-funded project advances the goal of perpetuating the fear of climate change among the population of tribal members and up-and-coming federal science workforce. No such agreement on knowledge is being formed with Christian colleges or other religious institutions that have belief systems — just Native groups, who had no written language prior to western contact, and whose beliefs were handed down by oral lore passed down through the generations, subject to interpretation.

American Indian Higher Education Consortium is a support network for the nation’s accredited tribal colleges and universities and works to influence public policy on American Indian and Alaska Native higher education issues through advocacy, research, and programmatic initiatives; promotes and strengthens Indigenous languages, cultures, communities, lands, and tribal nations; and through its unique position, serves member institutions and emerging tribal colleges, according to the group’s description.