Interior Department will give tribal nations $120 million to fight climate-related threats

The Biden administration will be allocating more than $120 million to tribal governments to fight the impacts of climate change, the Department of the Interior announced Thursday. The funding is designed to help tribal nations adapt to climate threats, including relocating infrastructure.

Indigenous peoples in the U.S. are among the communities most affected by severe climate-related environmental threats, which have already negatively impacted water resources, ecosystems and traditional food sources in Native communities in every corner of the U.S.

“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, addressing this reality with the urgency it demands, and ensuring that tribal leaders have the resources to prepare and keep their people safe is a cornerstone of this administration,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, said in a Wednesday press briefing.

Indigenous peoples represent 5% of the world’s population, but they safeguard 80% of the world’s biodiversity, according to Amnesty International. In the U.S., federal and state governments are relying more on the traditional ecological knowledge of Indigenous peoples to minimize the ravages of climate change, and Haaland said ensuring that trend continues is critical to protecting the environment.