For thousands of years, Native American practices maintained ecological balance in California. During this time, tribes accumulated knowledge and understanding of how to best adapt to environmental change. Today, meaningful tribal involvement – and leadership – is often lacking when it comes to making policy decisions and public investment on climate resilience.
For the past three years, Climate Resolve has had the pleasure of working with the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians (FTBMI), cultivating a partnership with this California-recognized tribe. “Working with FTBMI, putting pen to paper to bring their ideas to life has been a fruitful experience,” said Samantha Nuno, Climate Resolve’s Grants and Programs Analyst.
Through our Ready for Tomorrow program, Climate Resolve has provided free grant writing assistance to help the FTBMI apply for six grants in order to assist their climate resilience efforts. We’re pleased to report that over $1 million has been awarded to FTBMI from those proposals.
With our assistance, FTBMI won $180,000 from the 2021 California Resilience Challenge Grant to develop a Tribal Climate Resilience Plan with stakeholder buy-in from Tribal Citizens, neighboring tribes, and the community at large. FTBMI was awarded an additional $25,000 from Environmental Justice Data Fund to support the Tribe’s current data efforts to develop its Tribal Climate Resilience Plan and expand its native plants research.
FTBMI was also recently awarded approximately $800,000 from the 2022 Regional Climate Collaboratives grant for the establishment of the 2030 Resilient Networks Collaborative, a tribally-led collaborative group that aims to outline best practices for developing and conducting Tribal climate resilience projects. The Collaborative’s team includes the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxha Conservancy, Perez-Pacheco Consulting, Council for Watershed Health, UCLA Native Nations Law & Policy Center, and Climate Resolve.
This is a historic moment for tribal collaborations because it is the first time that the FTBMI has collaborated with the Gabrielino-Tongva Tribe on climate resilience.
“Climate Resolve’s Grant Writing Assistance Program has been instrumental in our pursuit of grants that assist the Fernandeno Tataviam Band of Mission Indians in developing our climate resiliency framework for current and future generations,” said Rudy Ortega, Jr., FTBMI Tribal President.
Climate Resolve looks forward to fostering our relationship with FTBMI as well as expanding our free grant writing assistance program to support other tribes in the new year. To contact our Ready for Tomorrow program, please click this link to sign up or email Kris Eclarino at keclarino@climateresolve.org.
By
Samantha Nuno
Grants & Programs Analyst
