Environment

This story was originally published by Grist.

Te Aniwaniwa Paterson
Grist

This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, record-breaking storms and flooding are impacting Māori land, health, and culture. And, according to a new national climate report, colonization has intensified those risks.

The 2026 National Climate Change Risk Assessment is composed of four reports, including a companion document focused on Māori communities. That report argues that climate change is likely to deepen existing inequities shaped by colonization, exclusion from decision-making, and chronic underinvestment.

To mitigate the impacts of climate change, the assessment points to Māori-led adaptation as uniquely effective. It calls for policy grounded in Māori customs and knowledge, Indigenous data sovereignty, and stronger Māori authority in climate decision-making.

“For more than 150 years Māori have been pushed to the margins, literally, by an aggressive colonization process,” said Paora Tapsell, who is Ngāti Whakaue and Ngāti Raukawa, and the director of the Kāika Institute of Climate Resilience at Lincoln University.

The assessment, released earlier this month, adds to a growing body of national reports that highlight the harmful impacts of colonial policies on Indigenous peoples and the environment. In 2023, the United States’ Fifth National Climate Assessment found that land theft and colonization had exacerbated climate change’s impact. The year before, Australia’s State of the Environment report was prepared with an Indigenous lead author for the first time; it found that Indigenous peoples were more likely to be impacted by extreme weather events like fires. It too called for incorporating Indigenous knowledge into climate policies. Despite these findings, Indigenous leaders around the world say national governments are still not listening to them.

Aotearoa New Zealand recently experienced one of its most active severe weather seasons on record, with multiple declared states of emergency across the nation’s two islands. It also found that the country’s Indigenous peoples are essential in responding to such disasters. “The report accurately acknowledges that many kāinga [Māori settlements], despite their relative impoverishment, are still willing first responders on the front line of increasingly severe climate events,” Shaun Awatere, who is Ngāti Porou and lead author of the companion report, said.

The assessment’s seven interconnected risk areas span environmental, cultural, and economic domains. It says the loss of protected endemic species is not only a biodiversity issue but also affects food gathering places, the Māori lunar calendar, traditional customs, and intergenerational knowledge systems. According to the report, some species could face near-irreversible decline in parts of the country under high-emissions scenarios by 2090.

Across Māori lands, climate-driven extreme weather events have had a destructive impact on infrastructure. But the report outlines how flooding, erosion, storms, and wildfires also present cultural risks by threatening tribal meeting places, burial sites, and communal homes. It warns that repeated damage and displacement could lead to long-term cultural fragmentation and disconnection from ancestral land.

Climate impacts may also be felt economically. Māori-owned forestry, farming, aquaculture, and horticulture enterprises face rising pressure from climate hazards, costs, and underinvestment in adaptation. Without structural reform and targeted support, the assessment says that economic vulnerability will increase.

Awatere said the findings confirm what tribes have been saying for years. “Climate events do not arrive one at a time,” he said. “A storm floods a road, damages a marae [tribal meeting place], erodes whenua [land], disrupts access to mahinga kai[food gathering places], and overwhelms health and welfare systems that were already stretched, all at once. Each of those harms compounds the next.”

The assessment also said climate-driven displacement and ecological degradation could disrupt the transmission of language, customary practices, lineage relationships, and Indigenous knowledge systems between generations.

Awatere highlighted ongoing structural exclusion of Māori from climate planning and adaptation systems, despite the government’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi, which is the country’s founding document. The report describes legal exclusion and governance failure as a major risk multiplier, compounding climate impacts across all domains.

Awatere said the central question is whether adaptation plans will reflect that evidence, or whether Māori communities will continue to carry a disproportionate risk of harm.

The Plug and Play Solar Act, which passed on a 35-1 vote, would allow portable solar generation devices with up to 1,200 W of output to connect to a building through a standard outlet. The bill now moves to the state Assembly, which has until August 31 to pass it during the current session.

Evan R. | Red Phoenix correspondent | Oregon–

Oceti Sakowin activists celebrate their victory in Rapid City, SD. (NDN Collective)

Deep in the Black Hills of South Dakota, known as He Sapa to the Oceti Sakowin (the Great Sioux Nation), organized Indigenous power has secured a vital victory in the ongoing struggle for national sovereignty. This triumph, while perhaps temporary, marks a significant milestone in the long-standing effort to reclaim ancestral lands and exercise self-determination.

The United States Federal District Court for the District of South Dakota in Rapid City ruled in favor of Oceti Sakowin tribes and activists by issuing a temporary restraining order against exploratory graphite drilling near the sacred Pe’ Sla, a site which holds high religious and cultural significance to the Oceti Sakowin people.

Pe’ Sla is a site in He Sapa that aligns with celestial patterns in traditional Lakota spirituality. It is a “bald spot” of prairie in the middle of the otherwise heavily forested mountain range. Used for prayer and sacred ceremonies, much of the land is now tribally owned, ensuring the Lakota can continue their cultural and spiritual practices there.

Spanning several thousand acres, the area is divided between land owned by the sovereign nations of the Oceti Sakowin and territory managed by the U.S. Forest Service. In a 2014 Memorandum of Understanding, the Forest Service formally recognized the site’s profound cultural and religious significance to the Oceti Sakowin, establishing a two-mile buffer zone and committing to the protection of that surrounding area.

The drilling sites at Pe’ Sla. (NDN Collective)

This victory did not emerge from a vacuum, nor did it spring from the grace or goodwill of the state administration; it was seized through the disciplined, organized action of the Oceti Sakowin and their allies. When the Forest Service granted the local firm Pete Lein and Sons exploratory drilling rights within the two-mile buffer zone surrounding Pe’ Sla, Indigenous defenders and their supporters immediately mobilized, utilizing every available tactic to halt the encroachment.

Nine tribal nations, representing the entire Oceti Sakowin people, filed suit. They were joined by allied organizations such as the Rapid City based NDN Collective, Black Hills Clean Water Alliance and Earthworks in Washington D.C. The lawsuit alleges that the Forest Service misapplied a “categorical exclusion” to circumvent required evaluations of the project’s environmental and cultural impacts.

Beyond just legal action, activists from the NDN Collective launched an active campaign of civil disobedience, physically stopping the drilling by occupying the site. Starting on Apr. 30, activists set up camps and began religious ceremonies in Pe’ Sla, and several members of the Oglala Lakota Youth Council locked themselves to the drilling machinery to prevent its operation.

Oceti Sakowin activists occupying a drilling site near Pe’ Sla. (ictnews.com)

Many of those involved in the struggle at Pe’ Sla are also involved in a mobilization against uranium mining in southern He Sapa, where the Canadian-based company Clean Nuclear Energy Corporation plans to begin exploratory drilling seven miles north of Edgemont, SD.

According to its application, the company intends to drill holes up to 700 feet deep at 50 different locations on state land, with each project lasting roughly two weeks. Similar drilling proposals for federal land are currently being evaluated by the U.S. Forest Service. Court hearings for this are scheduled for the May 20 and 21.

This project is proceeding under a “fast-track” permit issued by the Trump regime, part of a broader mandate to open publicly-managed lands for private exploitation.

As the administration accelerates the opening of federal lands and systematically guts the Forest Service budget, it has become clear that there is an intentional effort to dismantle long-standing protections for over 193 million acres of American wilderness. The ultimate objective is the complete privatization of these lands, handing them over to extractive industries. Due to the fact that Indigenous peoples represent a fundamental barrier to this project, the state has resorted to forced displacement.

The provocations by state and federal authorities here are merely the latest in a relentless history of attacks against the Oceti Sakowin and Indigenous nations at large.

After the long, drawn out wars of conquest during the late 1800s, the United States government signed the Fort Laramie treaty of 1868, which recognized He Sapa and all lands west of the Missouri river in present-day South Dakota as part of lands “set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” of the Oceti Sakowin as a “permanent home.”

Known as Wamaka Og’naka I’cante (“the heart of everything that is”) in Lakota, the entire mountain range is considered sacred to the Oceti Sakowin, not just Pe’ Sla.

He Sapa. (Encyclopedia Britannica)

Following the 1874 Custer expedition’s discovery of gold, which triggered a massive influx of illegal settlers, the U.S. government attempted to purchase He Sapa in 1876. The Oceti Sakowin refused. In response, the U.S. launched an unprovoked war of aggression that same year. Despite heroic resistance, the Oceti Sakowin were eventually defeated, and their land was unilaterally seized in 1877.

The illegality of this seizure was so absolute that in 1980, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Oceti Sakowin, ordering the U.S. government to pay $106 million in compensation. The tribes refused the settlement. Their position remains steadfast: the land was never ceded by tribal authorities, and their continued resistance declares with firmness that it is still not for sale

In a testimony to Congress in 2023, Oglala tribal president Frank Star Comes Out said:

“The United States broke its treaty promises when it invaded our territory to make war. After the defeat of the United States and the Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn in June 1876, Congress attached a ‘Sell or Starve’ rider to the Indian Appropriations Act of 1876, 19 Stat. 176, which cut off rations to our people in an attempt to coerce us to sell the Black Hills to the United States. Yet, we stood firm, and the United States was unable to secure our consent to the sale of the Black Hills. We said then — and we have repeated for generations — that the Black Hills are not for sale.”

The victory at Pe’ Sla is a testament to the fact that the struggle for Indigenous sovereignty is inseparable from the global fight against extractive capital. We Marxist-Leninists recognize here that, the state is not a neutral arbiter of law but an instrument of the ruling class. The “fast-track” permits and the gutting of the Forest Service are not mere policy shifts; they are the machinery of primitive accumulation, where the remaining commons are seized to offset the falling rate of profit in the metropole.

The Oceti Sakowin’s refusal of the 1980 settlement is a profound rejection of the commodification of the earth. It asserts that land is not capital to be bought and sold, but the material basis for national existence. By physically occupying Pe’ Sla and locking themselves to the machinery of production, the Oglala Lakota youth have engaged in the highest form of class struggle: direct confrontation with the forces of private property.

However, as long as the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie remains intact, these victories will remain temporary. The state’s drive toward privatization and environmental degradation is an existential necessity for the capitalist mode of production. True liberation for the Oceti Sakowin,and the protection of Wamaka Og’naka I’cante, requires a unified revolutionary front that recognizes the Indigenous struggle as a vital part of the struggle against imperialism. The land is not for sale because the future of the working class and the survival of the planet depend on its liberation from the hands of the exploiters.

This struggle demands more than passive observation; it requires the active mobilization of the international working class. We must move beyond “solidarity” in name only and do our utmost to organize the Indigenous Nations and integrate their struggle for self-determination as an integral part of our eventual socialist revolution.

We can support the front-line defenders at Pe’ Sla and those resisting uranium mining in the southern Hills by contributing to the NDN Collective and the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance. We must organize within our own communities to disrupt the flow of capital to the extractive industries that seek to desecrate Indigenous land. The fight for He Sapa is a fight for the future, not just for the Oceti Sakowin, but for all who wish to preserve a home on this Earth.

As the Lakota say, Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ: we are all related. The Indigenous struggle is inseparable from the movement for a truly free, democratic, and progressive society; one that finally represents the collective will of the people rather than the insatiable greed of the bourgeoisie.

Renee Costanzo cranked on the rusty pulley with both hands, watching the greenhouse roof creak open in sections. A breeze of spring air swept over 12,000 seedlings lined up in plastic trays in the Kilbourn Park greenhouse.

Costanzo, the Chicago Park District’s only full-time employee at the northside greenhouse, spearheads a months-long effort to grow more than 15,000 plants, including vegetables, greens, and flowers, to get them ready in time for the Kilbourn Park’s annual plant sale.

The massively popular sale, which took place earlier this month, typically draws upwards of 1,100 people every year, with local gardeners lining up around the park waiting to snatch up plants at $4 a piece. But this year, attendance broke records — over 2,300 shoppers turned out.

“We generally start these annuals at the end of February,” said Costanzo, pointing to rows of popular annual flowers like zinnias, marigolds, and geraniums, which provide bright blooms all summer long before dying at the end of the season. “So we’ve been coddling and loving these babies for months now, and we just want to get them into happy homes.”

Volunteers at Kilbourn Park prepare for the Mother’s Day plant sale. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

For decades, Chicago gardeners flocked to the Kilbourn Park sale to pick up tomatoes, cucumbers, and some annuals — the standard starter kit for backyard gardeners. But this year, the park responded to a relatively new demand: Nearly 1 in 5 plants for sale are native plant species that have adapted to the local climate and wildlife and are generally low maintenance.

“Just in the last five years, people have asked for more natives, which is why we’ve been increasing our production,” said Costanzo, who experimented with 30 different native species in November ahead of the plant sale this year.

For a long time, native plants were seen as little more than weeds, but their value has grown significantly in recent years. Other local plant sales across Chicago and the country are incorporating native species at a pace surprising to even veteran horticulturalists who remember a time when they couldn’t give them away.

“I’ve watched this for 44 years, from almost zero to now,” said Neil Diboll, the president of Prairie Nursery, a Wisconsin-based nursery dedicated to growing and shipping native plants across the country.

“It’s not a fad,” Diboll said. “This is a long, steady climb.”

Last year, Diboll said his nursery experienced a 7 percent increase in native plant sales. This year, they’re shipping out about 500,000 plants and even more seeds. Back in 1982, when Diboll first started selling plants, business was tougher: The company grossed just over $13,000. These days, he said, “you can add a few zeros on there.”

That relatively new mainstream demand has been driven, in part, by concerns about dramatic declines in insect species and climate change-powered extreme heat, drought, and flooding. The caterpillars of the Monarch butterfly, for example, depend on native milkweed as a food source. But as land use patterns have changed, local milkweed species have disappeared, leading to recent declines in Monarch populations.

The Kilbourn Park annual plant sale is now in its 30th year. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

“Native plants have been adapting to change for thousands of years,” said Tiffany Jones, who leads habitat education throughout the Great Lakes region for the National Wildlife Federation. “They need less water, less maintenance, and they’re incredibly resilient — not to mention they help flood prevention with their deep root systems and provide habitat for all kinds of crucial species and pollinators. They’re practical and beautiful.”

In Minnesota, Becky Klukas-Brewer, co-owner and head of marketing and sales at Prairie Moon Nursery, a popular native plant nursery, said the Midwest greenhouse is shipping more plants and seeds than ever before. “In the last seven years, we have seen a 350 percent increase in sales, which is pretty awesome,” said Klukas-Brewer. At the same time, the 44-year-old nursery has seen its orders triple. She credits that success, in part, to the growing number of local plant sales across the country, drumming up interest in ecologically-minded gardening.

For nearly 50 years, Wild Ones, a national nonprofit, has been educating the public about the benefits of reintroducing native plants back into their habitat. What started as a gardening club in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has ballooned into a nationwide organization with over 14,000 gardening enthusiasts putting on plant sales, seed giveaways, and exchanges. The group has also been noticing an uptick in native plant sales.

Over 110,000 native plants were sold last year through the organization’s 107 plant sales last year, according to Josh Nelson, development director with the Wild Ones. He added that another 40,000 native plants were distributed as part of the group’s various programs.

Lourdes Valenzuela works on transplanting young plants before Kilbourn Park’s annual plant sale. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

As the native plant business continues to grow, the annual Kilbourn Park plant sale is helping meet some of that demand. To make it happen, a team of local volunteers came out on a weekly basis over several months to help sort, pot, and move seedlings.

“It’s completely worth it,” said Lourdes Valenzuela, a retired schoolteacher who has volunteered at the north side plant sale for 12 years. Valenzuela is part of the Friends of Kilbourn Park Greenhouse, a dedicated group of local volunteers who fundraise to help expand the resources at the nursery. With help from funds collected at previous plant sales, they’ve been able to buy benches, a shed, and even a patio — increasing the footprint of the educational center. The goal this year was to raise $25,000, about half of the total projected cost, for a new outdoor learning center. But Valenzuela said the plant sale was a huge hit, and they easily surpassed the goal. The Chicago Park District confirmed the sale generated approximately $48,000.

“We literally sold every possible plant, all the compost, lots of baked goods,” she said. “We’re not fighting against the climate here. We’re working with it because it’s what’s native to this area, and they’re beautiful.”

Mike Leon, at centre, leads the Katzie First Nation’s team of eight guardians. They’ll be monitoring the benefits of the wetland restoration to measure its impact on native species, including sandhill cranes and salmon. Photo by Santana Dreaver

This story was originally published in the Narwhal and appears here with permission and minor style edits.

On a late April morning, a group of Katzie First Nation land guardians, conservation workers, government representatives and others trek down to Xwíʔləm̓nəc (Addington Point Marsh).

They gather in the First Nation’s Lower Mainland territory to celebrate the long-awaited completion of a wetland restoration project connecting to the Stó:lō (Fraser River).

Mike Leon leads Katzie’s team of eight guardians, and has been involved with the marsh restoration project from the beginning.

After everyone bypasses a locked gate — there to reduce the risk of bear-human encounters — they stop by the water, and he addresses the group.

“I would really like to raise my hands to all of you, to the hard work and willingness to work with us,” he said, “to be with us, to be with this land.”

READ MORE: New wetland salmon habitat to help restore syilx floodplain

The restoration effort was funded by the provincial government and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Katzie First Nation implemented the project with Resilient Waters, Ducks Unlimited Canada, and the Nature Trust of British Columbia, with many helping hands involved.

For three years, the partners worked together to reestablish waterflow in the marsh.

The wetlands connection to the “Pitt River” and south “Fraser River” system was disconnected when early settlers installed a dike, which has since been removed.

“I love doing the work,” added Mackenzie Adams, another Katzie guardian.

“I love being on our territory and helping the environment.”

Adams monitored the site throughout the project, and collected water and bird surveys to compare data before and after restoration.

The marsh restoration project was a collaboration among many partners, with all partners clear that Katzie First Nation was in the lead.

‘You can already see the differences’

Xwíʔləm̓nəc is now letting nature take its course, and with the area being home to one of the country’s largest salmon runs and smallest sandhill crane populations, monitoring the wetland is critical work for Katzie guardians.

“Comparing the first day to the last day was pretty eye opening because you can already see the differences from the river water coming in,” Adams said.

“It will be an awesome habitat for all birds and salmon fry.”

While the exact impact is still unknown, wetland restoration benefits are well-documented.

According to the B.C. Wildlife Federation, wetland monitoring is just as important as the initial restoration during a project.

“Monitoring, maintenance, and data collection help us evaluate the effectiveness of restoration techniques and improve the performance and function of future projects,” it reads on their website.

READ MORE: Indigenous conservationists are imitating beavers — hoping for their return

Leon’s team will be on top of that data, working with partners to restore and conserve native plants and animals in the area.

Beyond its environmental impacts, the project has brought people together from all walks of life who want to see salmon and wildlife in and around the Fraser River thrive.

Relationships between Katzie guardians and partners in the project have flourished.

A local property owner who attended the celebration shared their initial concerns after seeing excavation equipment clearing a path to the dike — and their relief after learning more about the endeavour.

Katzie had final say in restoration with many partners

Dan Straker, the manager for the Resilient Waters project, was a lead organizer under the direction of Katzie guardians and the First Nation’s leaders.

He said Katzie First Nation informed the project along the way and held final decision-making power.

“All the partners fell in line with that idea and thinking,” Straker told the Narwhal.

“What we ended up with was this really nice blended way of doing things.”

Leon added that, throughout the endeavour, Katzie brought in its customs, culture and laws.

READ MORE: How this Katzie First Nation birth worker carries on the teachings of her great-grandmother

“It’s really important and special to us to know our place names in our territory,” Leon said.

“When we have our guardians come out, we’re honoured to be on those place names such as Xwíʔləm̓nəc.”

It’s a sentiment shared by Katzie’s guardian co-ordinator April Pierre. In a quiet moment of emotion in the circle, she addressed a reality shared by many First Nations people: growing up away from her homelands.

The Xwíʔləm̓nəc restoration project gave Pierre an opportunity to spend time on land she had never been to — the land of her ancestors.

It’s one emotional moment of many that were shared during the celebration, as others reflected on the marine and wildlife already making appearances in the marsh.

After three years of restoration work, Katzie First Nation guardians and partners from conservation, government and community celebrated the reconnection of the Xwíʔləm̓nəc (Pitt-Addington Marsh) to the Stó:lō (Fraser River) watershed and surrounding floodplains — restoring critical salmon habitat in their territory.

Farmland saw marsh habitat ‘alienated’ from river

Dikes were built to create flat land for agriculture in the area since the late 1800s.

Restoring the marsh’s connection to the river has immense ecological benefits and cultural benefits for local First Nations.

“Conservation organizations in previous decades had a different approach to conservation land management that I think sometimes excluded other organizations and nations,” said Eric Balke, a senior restoration biologist with Ducks Unlimited.

“I think we are learning new and better ways of moving forward — more collaborative ways — and this project is a great example of that.”

Balke has been involved with restoring Xwíʔləm̓nəc since brainstorming and planning stages, eventually passing the reins to his colleague Alison Martin, a conservation specialist with degrees in ecological restoration.

The project is “all about restoring relationships,” Balke said, something he’s particularly excited about.

“You’re restoring the relationship between the river and these wetlands that were formerly alienated by dikes,” he explained.

“You’re restoring the relationship between Xwíʔləm̓nəc and juvenile salmon that previously were prevented from accessing the site … It’s also restoring the relationship between Katzie and their kin.”

Wetland restoration benefits salmon

In the Pacific Northwest, both people and the ecosystem know how important salmon is.

Xwíʔləm̓nəc is connected to Stó:lō waterway, the country’s largest salmon-bearing watershed.

“Floodplains provide critical, food-rich habitat for juvenile salmon,” explains the Pacific Salmon Foundation.

“These low-lying areas adjacent to stream channels allow young salmon to grow healthy and strong before their journey to the ocean.”

READ MORE: Troubled waters: A new fish weir on Stó:lō territories is met with colonial challenges

But dikes disrupt the river’s connection to the marsh, blocking valuable nutrients and harming the salmon and other species.

Tidal marshes and other wetlands collect nutrient-rich sediment, helping protect communities from flooding, he said.

“This land that settlers found is super valuable for farming and agriculture,” he said. “It was valuable because of the sediment that was delivered — because of the nutrients that were delivered — by the river.

“When we construct dikes we disconnect the river from its floodplain. The river can no longer deliver those critical ingredients.”

A huge benefit of restoring tidal marshes is that they are one of the most effective ways of capturing and storing carbon, contaminants, and pollutants that flow downstream.

Wetlands have many ecological benefits. But they also protect people and communities by mitigating the risk of floods, which have hit the valley hard around the Stó:lō (Fraser River) three times in the past five years.

Further, Xwíʔləm̓nəc is home to wapoto and tule, two traditional plants for Katzie First Nation that have been impacted from dikes.

Members of the nation say restoring their wetland is giving hope that these plants can be harvested for food and mat-making once again.

The marsh is also home to sandhill cranes, whose local population has hovered around just 30 to 35 birds for decades, wildlife biologist Myles Lamont told the Narwhal.

He joined the restoration project as a sandhill crane consultant. He said the few remaining birds often next on golf courses and small regional parks.

READ MORE: In ‘B.C.’s’ interior, a syilx program is returning burrowing owls to the grasslands

“Unfortunately they’ve been getting struck by golf balls,” he said.

“Quite commonly over the last 10 to 15 years, I’ve had to rescue a few birds that have had broken legs or injuries as a result of golf ball strikes.”

He hopes restoring Xwíʔləm̓nəc to a wetland will bring in enough water to create a nesting habitat for the birds, drawing them away from golf courses.

As participants spoke around the sharing circle, Lamont spotted a sandhill crane flying above the gathering, and called out, “Crane!”

To Adams, being part of the restoration initiative was “really cool … knowing that we’re making a difference,” recalled the Katzie guardians member.

“The salmon habitat has a place to go throughout the winter, and so do the sandhill cranes and [other] birds,” Adams said.

“It’s a good feeling … I feel accomplished.”

Flooding across northern Michigan last month pushed rivers to record levels, testing the limits of the state’s aging dams so severely that officials in one city nearly ordered evacuations as water threatened to spill over the top of a key barrier — a close call that highlights the growing risk that intensifying storms pose to similar infrastructure around the country.

Nationwide, the average dam is 64 years old and most were built for rainfall patterns that no longer reflect today’s changing climate. Thousands are classified as high hazard, meaning their failure could result in the loss of life. Dam safety experts say inspections are uneven and improvements often underfunded.

More than half of Michigan’s dams are beyond their 50-year design life, and the risks became clear as snowmelt and weeks of heavy rain swelled rivers. Rising water came within 5 inches of flowing over Cheboygan Dam in Cheboygan, a city of about 4,700 people, on April 16. In Bellaire, officials deployed about 1,000 sandbags to shore up a century-old dam.

“This needs to be considered not the worst we can experience. This needs to be considered as typical of the future,” said Richard Rood, a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan who studies climate change.

There are about 92,000 dams in the United States. About 18% are considered high-hazard. The Association of State Dam Safety Officials estimates repairing all of these aging structures will cost more than $165.2 billion. In Michigan, that estimate is $1 billion.

Communities facing these risks are left with difficult choices. Given the cost of repairing and upgrading dams to withstand stronger storms, removing them is often cheaper. That can reduce long-term risk and restore rivers to a more natural state. But it often faces resistance from property owners and communities with economies built around the reservoirs those dams created.

As floodwaters recede across Michigan, local leaders, dam safety advocates and experts are renewing calls to bolster safety regulations and deal with aging dams.

Bellaire Dam in Bellaire, Mich. on April 13, 2026
Austin Rowlader / IPR News

Bob Stuber, executive director of the Michigan Hydro Relicensing Commission, considers the April flooding a wake-up call and believes the solution is clear: upgrades where feasible and removal where it makes sense.

“I think every opportunity we have to remove an aging dam, we should take advantage of it because it’s not going to get better,” he said. “It’s just going to get worse.”

Officials in Traverse City came to that conclusion in 2024 and removed the Union Street Dam along the Boardman-Ottaway River as part of a decades-long restoration project that includes FishPass, which will allow key species to pass while blocking harmful invaders like sea lamprey. Engineers said that removal and upgrade most likely reduced flooding impacts when waters surged to near-record levels last month, falling just short of a 500-year flood.

“Upstream would have been under two more feet of water, which would have been quite devastating,” said Daniel Zielinski, a principal engineer for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. “We actually had a really great stress test of the system. It functioned really well.”

Removals are increasing across the country, according to data from American Rivers. Since 2000, more dams have come down than gone up, and that pace is accelerating as aging infrastructure, safety concerns, and environmental benefits reshape how communities weigh their value.

In northern Michigan, conservation groups like Huron Pines help dam owners make that decision. It has managed nine removals in the last 13 years and has seen growing interest after the recent flooding, said Josh Leisen, a senior project manager for the organization. Removal reconnects river ecosystems and eliminates the need for expensive upkeep of aging structures, he said.

“There are costs associated with repair and there are risks associated with having a dam,” Leisen said. “Even if it seems to be in good condition, you get extreme weather events like we just had.”

Removing dams is not always straightforward. Beyond the technical challenges, many communities are reluctant to give up the lakes and waterfronts those structures create.

“There’s this emotional attachment to that impoundment,” said Daniel Brown, a climate resilience strategist at the Michigan-based Huron River Watershed Council.

In other cases, dismantling isn’t practical. Some dams provide electricity or drinking water, linking them to local economies and infrastructure. “(Removal) is not really something that’s on the table because they are connected in this very practical way,” Brown said.

Still, Brown said there are limits to how much aging structures can be adapted to a warming world. “(A dam) is this very long-term, huge, expensive infrastructure that you’ve put on the landscape that’s going to stay there. And that is not how climate change or nature or rivers behave,” Brown said.

Dismantling dams, like upgrading them, can come with steep costs. The Boardman-Ottaway River project — which removed three dams in the largest removal effort in state history — cost $25 million. Huron Pines is managing the removal of Sanback Dam in Rose City next month, at an estimated cost of $4 million.

Half of the expense is funded through a grant program from the Michigan Department of Environment, Energy and Great Lakes, or EGLE, launched in response to the 2020 Edenville Dam failure which overwhelmed the downstream Sanford Dam. The twin catastrophes forced the evacuation of more than 10,000 residents, destroyed thousands of homes and flooded ecosystems in a disaster that investigators later found was avoidable. The $44 million state program funded several dam removals, upgrades and engineering studies before it ended last year.

Neil Hawk and his wife Dawn take a rowboat out to a residential part of Sanford to inspect the damage to their neighborhood following extreme flooding throughout central Michigan on May 20, 2020 in Sanford, Michigan. Matthew Hatcher / Getty Images

Federal funding is available through programs administered by agencies such as FEMA or U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But those resources fall short of the estimated $165.2 billion needed to address the issue, and some are at risk of elimination.

State governments regulate roughly 70 percent of the dams in the United States, with the federal government regulating hydropower dams and providing funding and guidance. This means inspection standards, regulations, enforcement, and resources can vary widely.

In Michigan, about 1,000 dams fall under state oversight, while 99 hydroelectric dams are overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The remaining 1,500 are smaller barriers that don’t fit the criteria for state regulation, according to the Michigan Dam Inventory.

Now, state officials are renewing calls for more money and stronger regulations. “Dam safety may be an issue that isn’t partisan,” said Phil Roos, director of EGLE.

Proposed state legislation would bolster inspection rules, address private ownership, update design standards, and create more funding opportunities for upgrades or removals. “It’s so important to our state that we can come together, and whether it’s passing the legislation that was proposed, or improving procedures or ultimately funding,” Roos said.

Michigan State Senator John Damoose has expressed concern about private dam ownership since the close call at Cheboygan Dam, which is under both state and private control. About 75 percent of the dams Michigan regulates are privately owned.

“Somebody made a point, ‘Well, we can’t have private companies owning these things.’ I tend to believe in private ownership but they might be right,” Damooose said during a Traverse City roundtable discussion on dam safety.

It’s not just a Michigan issue. Most dams in the United States are privately owned, meaning responsibility for maintenance, upkeep and potential failure falls on individuals, not governmental agencies, according to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials.

Climate change is expected to bring more frequent and intense storms. As the world warms, the atmosphere holds more moisture, fueling more intense precipitation, according to Rood at the University of Michigan.

“Recent flooding “has shown an incredible vulnerability,” he said. “(Dams) are either going to have to be removed or reengineered. Or they’re going to become a set of slowly unfolding failures.”

Luke Trumble, chief of dam safety for Michigan, said the state is already dealing with conditions that many dams were never designed to withstand.

“It’s a little bit of a misconception that if we fix the dam issue, there’ll be no more flooding,” Trumble said. “There’s still going to be flooding on rivers whenever we get rain like this, or rain on snow.”

“What we can do with dam safety legislation is help ensure that flooding is not made worse by a dam failure,” he said.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental journalist, New Yorker staff writer, and author of The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert says EPA chief Lee Zeldin has rescinded regulations, cut or eliminated departments and terminated the jobs of many scientists.

A few years ago, I was watching Ken Burns’ The American Buffalodocumentary when a photo of Fred Dupree and Mary Good Elk Woman popped up on the screen, and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, where did he get that? That’s our family photo!’ Fred and Mary are my great-great-great-great-grandparents, and they were living on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation in the late 1800s when Mary Good Elk Woman had a dream about saving the buffalo. The next morning, when she woke up, she told Fred he needed to get their sons and get out there and save the buffalo.

So they went out and rounded up some calves. The federal government supported efforts to eradicate the bison—it was a very purposeful campaign to destroy our food source—but the calves didn’t have any economic value at the time, so hunters left them alone. There were herds of just calves roaming around. So Fred and his sons went out, rounded up some calves, and eventually created a herd that helped repopulate the buffalo in parts of the Great Plains. Most all the buffalo in Custer State Park are descended from our family’s herd. And now, when I see baby bison, not orphaned but with their families, I get choked up, because we’ve come full circle – from a few orphans left to die on the plains to these joyful calves today zooming around their mothers.

I love that so much of my work today is still about helping bring the buffalo back to Tribes. I’m the vice president of Native Nations Conservation and Food Systems at the World Wildlife Fund. I started there in the fall of 2024 after spending four years as the director of the USDA’s Office of Tribal Relations under the Biden Administration. While I was at the USDA, I worked hard to change the agency’s policies to be more inclusive of Tribes, Tribal producers, and Indigenous foods. At the WWF, my team gets to continue much of these efforts, working to integrate Indigenous values into conservation work, and to directly support Tribal conservation—particularly with buffalo and buffalo food systems.

“You can only do so much with a PowerPoint. You really need people to experience things firsthand.”

While at USDA I often spoke to different agencies about the federal government’s role in slaughtering the buffalo in order to control Tribes’ access to food and to force Native people into becoming western farmers. It was important for people throughout the agency to understand how purposeful federal policy decisions led to the challenges you see today in Indian Country—high rates of diabetes, food insecurity, poverty, complicated land ownership, inaccessibility of Indigenous foods—because if we don’t understand the historical lens, then we can’t fix it.

But you can only do so much with a PowerPoint. You really need people to experience things firsthand. When we take people into Indian Country, it’s really impactful, but that’s hard to do. So we tried to bring experiences to D.C. as well. For Native American Heritage Month one November, my office decided to have an Indigenous Foods “cookoff” for the department. We invited people from all the different USDA agencies to stop by the office, where we had all kinds of Native ingredients on display, and pick an Indigenous ingredient to cook a dish with.

Across the board, people really got really excited, from the meat inspectors to the lawyers. One person even made brownies using tepary beans, a drought-resistant bean native to the Southwest. It was great to see folks who have never been to Indian Country doing their research on Indigenous foods and really excited, and I thought, “Wow, we have to do this every year.”

When I started at the USDA, I walked in hot. I had very specific things that I wanted to work on. I had spent years working for several large land-based Tribes, and I was aware of just how much USDA policies affect people in Indian Country. It’s our school lunches. It’s whether healthy and Indigenous foods are available through the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), which we call “the commodity program” or “commods.” It’s also our grazing rights and lack of access to farming and ranching programs. And it’s our ability to process Indigenous sources of protein, like buffalo, reindeer, and salmon.

I did a lot of hiring to make sure there was a Tribal liaison in each USDA agency. That’s important because, for example, for nutrition programs like FDPIR, SNAP, and WIC, you need someone who understands that Native bodies evolved with non-European diets. For example, Indigenous Alaskans, they’re like the original Keto diet, right? Highfat, low carbohydrate. So, whale blubber, seal, and salmon. The high proportion of those kinds of foods don’t always meet Western nutritional guidelines. So if you don’t have a Native person to consult with, you’re not going to recognize that Native bodies are different, and you’re going to be feeding those bodies the wrong foods.

That’s what happened for years and years. After we were pushed off our lands and lost our food sources, we were forced to became dependent on the federal government to feed ourselves. The FDPIR program is the modern version of that dependence, and it’s a necessity for Tribes on large reservations where grocery stores are few and far between. The USDA purchases and ships domestically sourced foods to Tribal governments, and Tribes distribute it through warehouses or Tribal stores. Historically, those food packages were lard and flour and things that were really bad for Indigenous bodies and caused dramatic problems with diabetes and obesity.

When I was at USDA, I was able to get that changed somewhat so that Tribes could choose more of the foods they wanted to eat: wild rice in the Great Lakes, buffalo in the Great Plains, blue corn in the Southwest, salmon in Alaska. It’s not across the board, but where it’s been implemented, it has been wildly successful. So now you’re seeing people calling up the FDPIR office and asking, “Hey, is the bison in?” and really wanting to participate in these programs because they are foods that are both culturally appropriate and nutritionally appropriate for the bodies in those regions. So that was a big win.

“It’s what happens when you let Tribes do what Tribes want to do: They buy healthy foods locally, and they eat healthy foods locally.”

But the really big win for Indigenous Food Sovereignty when I was at the USDA was the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement program (LFPA), which was funded first through the American Rescue Plan and later extended. It took the federal dollars and rather than USDA doing the food purchasing, it gave the money directly to states and Tribes. Those governments could then purchase whichever foods they wanted, as long as the food they bought came from within 400 miles. The idea was to strengthen local food producers after COVID showed that parts of our food supply chain were vulnerable to disruption.

I can’t speak for the states, but the LFPA was revolutionary for Tribes. It changed everything, because for the first time, Tribes had the dollars themselves to do what they’ve been thinking about forever: eating local Native foods. The Sitka Tribe of Alaska was buying crab and salmon and clams, and the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota was buying wild berries, wild turnips, and buffalo, and several Ojibwe Tribes were buying wild rice. It also empowered people within Indian Country to go out and get wild foods, like by digging up prairie turnips and starting a bison harvesting plant because they had a buyer. And it also empowered the people who wanted to eat these wild foods because now they could access them. So it created this whole economy around Indigenous local foods. It’s what happens when you let Tribes do what Tribes want to do: They buy healthy foods locally, and they eat healthy foods locally.

Unfortunately, the dollars ran out on that, but I’m hoping that Congress rethinks it, because it’s a very conservative principle. It’s basically stopping the federal government from running your nutrition programs and letting local communities empower local producers. The LFPA is also a good example of the importance of having Native people in the federal government, because originally, the LFPA did not include Tribes. The money was just going to go to state governments. We helped change that, because Tribes are not subsidiaries of the states, we’re not counties, we’re our own sovereign governments.

Another thing I helped change was access to meat processing. For 250 years, the USDA has really only invested meat-processing dollars in harvesting European domesticated animals—cattle, pigs, sheep, and chickens. We’ve never funded the processing of the animals that are actually native to the U.S. But our people want to eat seal and whale and deer and elk and moose and bison. So for the first time ever, the USDA gave grants to fund meat processing for those animals, through the Indigenous Animals Harvesting and Meat Processing Grant. And one really cool project that came out of the grants was the mobile meat-processing trailers that Tribes can take out to the field to process a buffalo.

Many Tribes don’t like to load a bunch of buffalo on a truck and take them to a big slaughterhouse. We think that’s disrespectful, because the buffalo are our relatives, and that is very stressful for them. We prefer to bring a sharpshooter out onto the prairie who takes down the animal in one shot while it’s grazing. The buffalo doesn’t ever know what’s coming and doesn’t get stressed. It lives and dies with dignity where it’s lived its whole life.

But the only way you can do that and also address modern food safety requirements is if you’ve got a refrigerated mobile harvest trailer so you can field-dress that animal out on the prairie. So I got the USDA to finance, along with the Intertribal Buffalo Council, a harvesting trailer to show it could be done. It was wildly successful. I don’t even know how many we have now, I think about 15 trailers. Every Tribe wants one. And they‘re only like $100,000 each. So compared to a $30 million stationary processing facility, they’re very accessible.

Another important policy that I worked on at USDA was changing school lunches to include more Native foods. The biggest challenge to school lunches is that the federal appropriation amount is so small; it’s a little over $4 a child, and that forces most schools to buy really unhealthy food in bulk. Schools turn to these large food corporations that consolidate the market and can offer them ultra-processed food that is not really food.

So, one of the biggest issues we faced at USDA was, how to empower schools in Indian Country to purchase local foods that are healthier for their people when you only get $4 per student? It’s really hard. So, to be frank, we’ve only been able to include Indigenous foods in Native schools when Tribes or grants have subsidized the cost. Because the price point of buying local food, whether it’s buffalo or wild rice or other things, is so much more expensive than what schools have in their budgets.

I also helped clarify to people who work in schools in Indian Country what the rules are for buffalo meat inspection. That was something we really wanted to get across during last year’s Buffalo to School Conference, because there’s a myth that all meat you serve in schools has to be USDA-inspected, but that’s not true. Buffalo and game meat are not required by USDA to be USDA-inspected. So we spent a lot of time demystifying that. We also brought together Native buffalo ranchers and school staff so they could get to know one another and create a pipeline for getting more buffalo meat into schools.

During my last year at the agency, I remember we had a panel on Indigenous Food Sovereignty with Native celebrity chef Sean Sherman and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Sean was criticizing the USDA’s destruction of Indigenous foodways and lack of inclusion of Indigenous foods in USDA programs, and Secretary Vilsack got upset, and he pushed back and talked about how important Indigenous foods were and then listed out all the things the USDA was doing to support Tribes and Indigenous foods.

And I thought, OK, my work here is done. For a USDA secretary to actually care enough about Indigenous foods to be proud of the work, to get upset about it, and to know in detail all the things USDA is doing to help with Indigenous food sovereignty? That was a first for the history books.

As told to Civil Eats and lightly edited.

Editor’s note: ICT will refer to individuals defending the Black Hills as treaty defenders. The Black Hills is unceded territory in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and acknowledged by the 1980 Supreme Court ruling of the United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians.

Amelia Schafer*ICT*

RAPID CITY, South Dakota – Roughly a dozen Indigenous treaty defenders gathered near Pe’ Sla, a sacred site in the Black Hills, early Thursday morning to show their opposition to drilling near the site. Treaty defenders conducted ceremonial activities near two drill pads in response to recent exploratory graphite drilling within the two-mile buffer zone around Pe’ Sla.

Lakota youth “locked down” to drilling equipment, by taping their arms to machinery, and organizers constructed a prayer altar nearby. As of Thursday morning, organizers were informed law enforcement was en route but had not yet arrived.

Indigenous people in South Dakota concerned, alarmed at potential drilling project at sacred site

Treaty defenders said they fear that mining activity could threaten the nearby Rapid Creek Watershed, which supplies water to several tribal communities as well as local municipalities like the Ellsworth Air Force Base. Drilling also could disrupt ceremonies regularly held at Pe’ Sla, tribal leaders told ICT in May 2025.

For Oceti Sakowin (Lakota, Dakota and Nakoda) people, Pe’ Sla is sacred in part because it aligns with the constellations at various points in the year and is a focal point of oral history. Pe’ Sla is roughly 50 miles west of Rapid City. The area has been used by Oceti Sakowin nations for generations as a site for ceremony and gathering.

Exploratory drilling for graphite, in this case, involves drilling up to 18 holes that are 3 to 3.5 inches in diameter 1,000 feet into the earth.

Currently, all of the United States’s graphite comes from China, representatives from the South Dakota Mineral Industries Association told ICT in May 2025. With new tariffs from President Donald Trump, companies are looking for a domestic solution. That solution could come in the Black Hills, but not without threatening hard fought for tribal sovereignty over an area already promised to the Oceti Sakowin.

A man sits in prayer near a piece of drilling equipment used for exploratory graphite drilling near Pe’ Sla in the Black Hills. Credit: Courtesy Angel White Eyes, NDN Collective

The U.S. Forest Service granted local mining company Pete Lien & Sons a permit allowing for exploratory drilling near the site on Feb. 27. The permit was deemed to be exempt from the federal environmental review process required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

At least 10 drill pads are operating within the two-mile buffer zone surrounding Pe’ Sla, according to NDN Collective, a nonprofit Indigenous advocacy organization headquartered in Rapid City. The buffer zone was created following the purchase of portions of Pe’ Sla by several Oceti Sakowin tribes, after which it was placed in federal trust.

Treaty defenders placed signs and banners on mining equipment and sang and drummed at the site.

NDN Collective and two environmental advocacy groups, Black Hills Clean Water Alliance and Earthworks, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service on April 2 in response to its decision to permit drilling. The lawsuit cites violations of the National Environmental Policy Act and potential threats to lands recognized for religious and cultural importance.

In late April, the three plaintiffs filed for a temporary restraining order to stop drilling, NDN Collective organizers said.

“Pe’ Sla is our sacred land, and we are doing everything we can to protect it,” said Valeriah Big Eagle, Ihanktonwan Dakota and the director of He Sapa Initiatives at NDN Collective in an April 30 press release. “We will not cease our ceremony in the face of destruction, disrespect, and illegal drilling.”

Just a month after a sweeping World Meteorological Organization report led United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to declare that "every key climate indicator is flashing red," WMO and another UN agency marked Earth Day on Wednesday by releasing an analysis focused on "how extreme heat is reshaping food production and food security."

Simply titled "Extreme Heat and Agriculture," the WMO and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report lays out how extreme heat "is influenced by multiple interlinked drivers," including the trends and inertia of human-induced climate change, natural climate variability, and meteorological phenomena such as droughts and atmospheric and marine heatwaves. Then, it gets into what that means for agriculture.

"Extreme heat is increasingly defining the conditions under which agrifood systems operate," WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo and FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu stressed in the foreword of the report. "Rising temperatures and heatwaves, occurring with greater frequency, duration, and intensity, are often accompanied by prolonged drought and other climate extremes."

"Higher temperatures parch soils, reduce harvests, strain livestock, disrupt fisheries, and increase wildfire risk. When combined with water scarcity, the consequences intensify, cutting production, lowering incomes, and tightening food supplies," the pair wrote. "These impacts extend far beyond the farm gate. They represent a systemic risk to global food security and to the livelihoods of more than 1.23 billion people who rely on agriculture."

For example, yields of staple crops such as maize and wheat have already declined by 7.5% and 6%, respectively, with 1ºC of global temperature rise beyond preindustrial levels. The publication points out that yields "are projected to decline by up to an additional 10% for every 1ºC of warming in the future."

It also notes that "under high-emission scenarios, nearly half the world's cattle could be exposed to dangerous heat by 2100," resulting in annual losses nearing $40 billion. Under a low-emission scenario, the report adds, "impacts from livestock exposure to extreme heat are reduced by nearly two-thirds."

The report details vulnerabilities, observed impacts, and projections for not only crops and livestock but also fisheries and aquaculture; forests, plantations, and orchards; and agricultural workers.

Saulo and Qu highlighted that "agricultural workers are already experiencing effects on their health, productivity, and income. As climate variability intensifies, hard-won progress in reducing hunger and poverty comes under strain, with shocks rippling through economies and households and disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable."

The report outlines the existing "range of technical agricultural adaptation options and other broader nontechnical risk management strategies" for responding to extreme heat, as well as barriers to implementing them. It also offers a case study: the extreme heat event that hit Brazil in 2023-24.

That period in the South American country "serves as a stark example of the breadth and severity of compound impacts that can be triggered by a primary extreme heat event," the report states. "On top of a warmer baseline shaped by climate change and amplified by El Niño, the heatwave simultaneously impacted crops, livestock, forests, fisheries, and human health."

"The interconnected failures highlight the profound vulnerability of the entire agricultural sector and the grave implications such events have for the livelihoods and food security of the millions who depend on it," the report continues, emphasizing that "building systemic resilience through adaptation and dedicated risk reduction is imperative."

"While this report outlines a path toward enhanced resilience, solutions and opportunities are not infinite," the publication adds. "Alongside robust adaptation and risk reduction strategies, the only durable solution to the escalating threat of extreme heat lies in ambitious, multilateral climate change mitigation."

🌡️ Extreme heat is already affecting crops, livestock, forests, fisheries & the people who produce our food.New @fao.org-@wmo-global.bsky.social report on #ExtremeHeat & Agriculture shows the impacts & #ClimateAction needed to respond to this growing threat.🔗 https://bit.ly/4cXmmOe#EarthDay

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— Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (@fao.org) April 22, 2026 at 4:15 AM

After the most recent UN Climate Change Conference, COP30, concluded in Brazil late last year, critics called it "another failed climate summit." The United States is the world's largest historical climate polluter, yet President Donald Trump didn't even attend, and has spent his second term not only repealing climate policies but also serving the planet-wrecking fossil fuel industry whose campaign cash helped him return to power.

Trump has also started a new illegal war in the Middle East, partnering with Israel to target Iran. That assault has underscored how armed conflict negatively impacts agriculture and food systems around the world. The Iranian government has restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—a key trade route, including for fertilizer and fossil fuels—which has prompted mounting alarm about a global food crisis.

Earlier this month, ahead of the current fragile ceasefire, the FAO's chief economist, Máximo Torero, warned that farmers would soon "have to choose: Farm the same with fewer inputs, plant less, or switch to less intensive fertilizer crops."

Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the UN Office for Project Services, said Tuesday that "the planting season has already started, and in most countries in Africa it will end in May. So, if we don't get some solution immediately, the crisis will be very significant and severe, particularly for the poorest countries and for the poorest citizens."

The “State of the Air” 2026 report finds that even after decades of successful efforts to reduce sources of air pollution, 44% of Americans—152.3 million people—are living in places that get failing grades for unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution. We found that nearly half of American children (46%, or 33.5 million people under the age of 18) live in counties that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution. Ten percent of children (7.3 million people under age 18) live in counties with failing grades for all three measures. Infants, children and teens are especially vulnerable to the health harms of breathing air pollution. Their lungs are still developing, they breathe more air for their body size than adults, and they frequently spend more time outdoors.

https://archive.is/YD9I6

Sup you weirds

"Cellafredda is a hybrid photovoltaic module that combines the production of electrical and thermal energy in a single system. Installed behind photovoltaic panels, it integrates a hydraulic circuit that cools the solar cells, improving efficiency and extending their lifespan. At the same time, it recovers the produced heat and makes it available for thermal uses, such as domestic hot water or heating."

This story was originally published by Source New Mexico.

Danielle Prokop
Source New Mexico

Three New Mexico Pueblos, Santa Ana, Zuni and Cochiti, recently received federal funding for tribal conservation programs and wildfire management that will be used to support efforts surrounding endangered birds, bald eagles and Bighorn sheep.

The awards, close to $200,000 each for Santa Ana and Cochiti, and approximately $180,000 for Zuni, come as part of $6.6 million distributed through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Tribal Wildlife Grants program, which funds more than 700 conservation programs operated by Native American and Alaska Native Tribes. The most recent grants, announced last week, will benefit 35 tribes.

“Tribes are vital partners in wildlife conservation, and we’re proud to support projects that reflect their connection to the land and leadership in protecting it,” U.S FWS Service Director Brian Nesvik said in a statement. “These investments support tribal sovereignty while advancing our shared conservation goals.”

Santa Ana Pueblo will use its funds to install wildlife recording devices along the Rio Grande to monitor two endangered birds: the Yellow-billed cuckoo and the Willow flycatcher.

Zuni Pueblo was granted the funds for Zuni Eagle Aviary, which houses debilitated gold and bald eagles. The funding will assess the facility’s wildfire risk, install safety systems and clear brush. Additionally, the funding will be used for expanding the aviary’s work to include “rehabilitation and release program” on site. Neither Santa Ana nor Zuni Pueblos responded to Source NM requests for comment.

Cochiti Pueblo will use its funds to track Bighorn sheep population, which the Pueblo and the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish reintroduced in 2014 to the Cochiti canyon and the Jemez mountains after a century-long absence of herds in that area.

Specifically, Cochiti Pueblo will monitor the Bighorn sheep for the parasitic New World screwworm moving through Mexico.

The Pueblo will also restore the habitat devastated by the 2022 Cerro Pelado wildfires, which, in combination with drought, threatens the herd’s ability to move and much of their food, according to Earl Conway, the director of the Natural Resources and Conservation program at Cochiti Pueblo.

“These stressors combined have made it difficult for bighorn sheep to move safely across the landscape, maintain herd health, and sustain stable population levels,” Conway said in a statement.

The funding will help with targeted habitat restoration, replanting of fire-resistant vegetation and tracing the herd’s movements.

“Combined with wildfire prevention measures, these activities will reduce the risk of future habitat loss and ensure a more resilient and sustainable environment for Bighorn sheep herds,” he said.