Ranco awarded funding to develop climate resilience with Wabanaki communities
Darren Ranco, professor in Anthropology and the Mitchell Center, and chair of Native American Programs at the University of Maine, received funding from Jane鈥檚 Trust Foundation for a project to develop adaptive resilience to climate change with Wabanaki communities.
The funds will be used to host two knowledge-gathering conferences with Wabanaki elders and knowledge keepers in order to maintain and update the Wabanaki Climate Adaptation and Adaptive Management Workbook, a culturally relevant guide for Maine鈥檚 Wabanaki communities to adapt to climate change developed in collaboration with the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (NE CASC). The workbook, which has been in development since 2016, was inspired by the , a guide to climate adaptation for tribes in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan designed by the Tribal Adaptation Menu Team from Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC).
鈥淲e have been able to work with the tribal folks locally across tribes here to develop these sorts of strategies using the framework established by the tribes in the upper Midwest, but in our cultural context,鈥 Ranco says. 鈥淭he idea is that the tribes can reference this workbook as they develop more specificity around climate adaptation planning.鈥