Tribal Coastal Resilience Connections (TCRC)

Overview

The Tribal Coastal Resilience Connections team was developed in partnership with Tribal community liaisons to build capacity to support Native Nations with present day and ancestral ties to the Albemarle-Pamlico region with considering environmental risk, resilience, and adaptation planning through community led engagement. In addition to working with Indigenous communities, we also aim to educate resilience practitioners on best practices for including Tribes in agency, NGO, and university led programs. 

The team is building inter-Tribal coalitions that work together collaboratively to increase awareness among Tribal communities around the risks and threats of recurring extreme weather events, inundation, and environmental change, and foster discussions about the relationship between ecosystem and community resilience and adaptation planning. The project concentrates efforts in the APNEP program area in southeast Virginia and northeastern North Carolina but aims to learn from and highlight great work that Tribal communities are already doing in other parts of Virginia and North Carolina, many of which have longstanding historical ties to the APNEP region.

 [Map above adapted from Emanuel and Wilkins (2020) Water]

The project team released the Phase I Report in October 2023. The current phase narrows the scope to focus on expansion of efforts and tools identified in Phase I, including development of ArcGIS Online Web Applications or Story Maps through targeted work in the Chowan Watershed in the shared waterways of the Albemarle-Pamlico region between Virginia and North Carolina (also supporting APNEP MOU implementation), as well as deepening relationships between communities, agencies, and academia. The team will utilize mapping and planning to build a regional adaptation framework tailored to the region (modeled after the WAMPUN framework described in the Phase I report) to assist with future resilience planning. The information will also provide a platform that can be utilized to educate agency staff on considerations, perspectives, and traditional ecological knowledge unique to native communities.

Background

The project was initially funded through supplemental funding awarded from the Environmental Protection Agency and developed by APNEP staff under advisement and in close partnership with representatives from tribal communities in the Albemarle-Pamlico watershed and coastal plain. It was designed to increase engagement between tribal organizations, government agencies, and university faculty, as well as to acknowledge the unique knowledge and cultural perspectives of tribal communities surrounding environmental change. APNEP initially partnered with the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs (NCCIA), NC State University (colleagues now with Duke University), and the Virginia Coastal Policy Center at the College of William and Mary (colleagues now with University of Virginia Institute for Environmental Negotiation) to guide project development. Other project advisors include the UNC American Indian Center, the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency, and the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center. 

In the fall of 2020, the project team, led by Beth Roach (Tribal Councilwoman with the Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia), kicked off the project with the Tribal Coastal Resilience Connections Facebook page. Community engagement envisioned through the project includes workshops and other forums to share information on climate impacts and resilience planning strategies, and promotion of information sharing between tribal communities and resilience practitioners. Due to restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the team moved engagement to social media and virtual webinars and workshops. The social media page was established as a forum for Tribal community partners to share their present-day and ancestral connections to Albemarle-Pamlico watershed and coastal plain of Virginia and North Carolina. In addition to digital outreach, a graduate research assistant, under the guidance of Duke University faculty member and member of the Lumbee tribe Dr. Ryan Emanuel conducted an analysis to assess climate resilience planning and implementation projects by tribal governments and other tribal or inter-tribal organizations throughout the United States. 

In October 2023, the project team briefed APNEP's Leadership Council on progress and take aways from this work and released the Tribal Coastal Resilience Phase I Report. The project supports implementation of North Carolina’s Executive Order 80 and the State Climate Risk and Resiliency Plan, similar directives in Virginia, and APNEP’s Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan. 

Stay tuned for more information about Phase II!

Tribal Coastal Resilience Phase I Report