Karuk Tribe – 2017 Project

NOTE: Project pages are being updated regularly to reflect changes, if any; however, some of the information may be dated.

Summary

The Karuk Tribe’s 2016 Vulnerability Assessment outlines how environmental influences have created landscape conditions that hold the potential to be completely devastating in the face of future high-severity fires. This project will create an Resiliency Plan for the Karuk Tribe and refine the Karuk Department of Natural Resources (KDNR) Strategic Plan in light of information presented by the Karuk Resiliency Plan—the foundation of which will be a key contributor in the development of adaptive land management strategies that promote interagency collaboration and reflect tribal needs as the Mid Klamath responds to the demands of environmental impacts.

The Karuk Tribe is the second-largest federally recognized tribe in California with 3,744 tribal members and 4,110 enrolled descendants. Increases in average temperatures, droughts, and fires in the Mid Klamath region have profound implications for the Karuk Tribe.

Statewide, California is the hottest and driest since modern record-keeping was initiated. Among the most urgent of the local dimensions of environmental impacts within Karuk Ancestral Territory is the increased frequency of high-severity fire. The Karuk Tribe’s 2016 Vulnerability Assessment outlines how these influences have created landscape conditions that hold the potential to be completely devastating in the face of future high-severity fires. The Assessment provides a framework to describe significant risks for Karuk tribal program capacity and management authority during and after high-severity fires. Results from the Assessment demonstrate the implications of changing climactic conditions for Karuk Ancestral Territory across three scales: Karuk traditional foods and cultural use species; tribal program infrastructure; and tribal management authority and political status.

The proposed project follows the format of Karuk Tribe’s 2016 Vulnerability Assessment and furthers information garnered to accomplish two primary objectives:

1. Create a resiliency plan for the Karuk Tribe
2. Refine the Karuk Department of Natural Resources (KDNR) Strategic Plan in light of information presented by the Karuk Resiliency Plan.

Achieving project objectives will increase the effectiveness in incorporating tribal needs and concerns into the development and implementation of regional landscape-level management plans. It will also provide opportunities to strengthen existing relationships with contributing faculty and students at the University of Oregon Departments of Sociology and Environmental Studies. Further, integration of the Resiliency Plan into current tribal planning documents will provide a foundation for future efforts to develop and achieve long-term tribal goals related to mitigating environmental impacts in Karuk Ancestral Territory. The Tribe intends to expand the scope of its fire-focused 2016 Vulnerability Assessment to be inclusive of additional influences resulting from shifting weather conditions (e.g., changing precipitation patterns and temperature). Holistically, each proposed project phase serves the purpose of elevating tribal capacity to respond to these growing demands in the Mid Klamath.

The Karuk Tribe of California is located near the California/Oregon border in the northwestern corner of the state, in Humboldt and Siskiyou Counties. The territory comprise rugged, mountainous terrain that is bisected by the Klamath River and its many tributaries.

The project is complete. For additional details, see the final report.

The project was competitively selected under the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Indian Energy Fiscal Year 2016 funding opportunity announcement “First Steps Toward Developing Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency on Tribal Lands – 2016” (DE-FOA-0001621) and started in September 2017.

The November 2017 and December 2018 project status report provides more information.