Thriving Environment

Indigenous peoples are often on the frontlines of climate change; their intrinsic ties to the land for sustenance and cultural identity means that they are particularly vulnerable to its effects. Everything from wildfires, extreme droughts, and sea-level rise to more incremental climatic shifts can irrevocably alter sacred landscapes, resulting in the loss of places, plants, and animals that are critical to sustaining traditional ways of life. Indigenous and Tribal communities are also key to protecting and restoring lands critical to staving off the most severe climate change scenarios. Traditional, intergenerational knowledge embedded in these communities makes them powerful stewards of ecosystems and biodiversity.

Each Indigenous population has distinct values and uses of natural resources. It is with respect for those beliefs and practices that we partner with them to help assess climate risks and strengthen communities’ resilience to climate change. In the U.S., Abt has partnered with Tribal Nations for more than 20 years on an array of environmental topics that help preserve sacred landscapes, Indigenous first foods, life-sustaining and spiritual water sources, and traditional lifeways.

Our approach reflects the distinct nature of each Tribal Nation and helps strengthen climate resiliency based on a nation’s sovereign identity. We help identify a community’s unique vision through workshops with youth, elders, resource managers, and Tribal government leaders. We then assess vulnerabilities, including to plants and animals used as first foods, which are important foods and staples of Indigenous culture, spirituality, medicine, and overall well-being. Next, we help Tribes develop adaptation options, which typically blend western science with Indigenous knowledge. We collaborate with community leaders to ensure the results are accessible and resonate with the community.

We applied this approach in supporting the Pueblo de San Ildefonso to identify the community’s vision and adaptation options focused on traditional activities and places, community health and infrastructure, and governance (see graphic by artist Erin Martinez). We are currently working with the Pueblo to implement high-priority adaptation actions.

We ensure that our data collection and research expertise deepens understanding and improves communities’ adaptive capacity. Partnering with the Native Alaskan Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust, we are studying the impacts of climate and contaminants on Alaska Atlantic Salmon. This first food of Native Alaskans and other Tribal Nations is under threat due to climate change, mining contamination, and other stressors. Diminishing fish populations upend local cultures and harm human health. Developing a better understanding of the effect of rising temperatures on these fish can inform the design of adaptation strategies, such identifying and protecting existing spawning grounds with groundwater inputs that serve as thermal refugia for developing salmon embryos. For a population facing multiple stressors, alleviating this one (temperature) may help to improve the odds of survival.

To further advance progress in this area, Abt is investing in our development of a remote-sensing fish-population modeling tool that will allow Tribal Nations and government agencies to assess climate and other impacts on fish populations. Our hope is that use of this tool, in combination with Indigenous knowledge, will support the management of key fisheries that sustain the traditional lifeways of many Tribal communities.

Community population-level health is also a critical area of our work. We conducted a human impact assessment on the combined effects of contamination and climate on the Pueblo de San Ildefonso, in the U.S. Southwest. Our work demonstrated that increased runoff and erosion during storm events following wildfires can result in greater movement and concentration of contaminants, potentially increasing the risk of exposure and harmful health effects. Our analysis showed that contaminant concentrations tripled after a particularly significant runoff event that followed a large wildfire.

Detecting effects is just the starting point. Western science and Indigenous knowledge and ingenuity can combine to produce truly sustainable solutions. All with three goals in mind: improving community health outcomes, protecting Tribal Nations’ environments, and preserving Indigenous ways of life.

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For years, the process for granting a facility an emissions permit in Massachusetts focused primarily on emissions expected from the proposed facility or process change. It did not consider nearby communities’ exposure to existing pollution sources or the cumulative effects of emissions from existing and new sources.

That’s about to change. A 2021 state law mandates a more holistic approach. The law sets new goals for emissions and clean energy, and establishes a clear definition of communities overburdened by pollution. Partnering with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), Abt is developing a cumulative impact analysis framework which will evaluate the impacts of increased emissions in areas that may already be overburdened with pollution, environmental degradation, and the effects of climate change.

This change in air emissions-permitting is important because individuals and communities do not experience a single pollutant or a single exposure. They are exposed to numerous pollutants from multiple sources. In addition, these chemical stressors may interact with each other as well as with non-chemical stressors, such as extreme weather and climate change to affect health and well-being. Under Massachusetts’s new process, permit applicants will have to explore whether a neighborhood already has poor air quality and a disproportionate amount of pollution, which can lead to varied health problems from cancer to pulmonary issues. Applicants will need to determine whether the population has unique vulnerabilities that make it susceptible to harm from increased air pollution.

To build this Cumulative Impact Analysis (CIA) framework for Massachusetts, Abt identified and screened more than 80 environmental, public health, demographic, and climate indicators. We are now supporting MassDEP’s development of a risk-screening tool for CIAs to streamline and scale the analysis.

Gathering input from communities and ensuring communities have access to information are critical for governments to build trust and ensure transparency in environmental regulation. In Massachusetts, Abt supports community engagement through webinars at half a dozen MassDEP stakeholder meetings designed to gather input on the new CIA process. Abt is also providing data to communities across the U.S. to strengthen Right to Know activities and ensure residents know what goes into the air their kids breathe, the water they drink, and the ground they play on.