Karuk Tribe: Learning from the First Californians for the Next
California Editor's Note: This is part of series, Facing the
Climate Gap, which looks at grassroots efforts in California
low-income communities of color to address climate change and
promote climate justice. This article was published in
collaboration with GlobalPossibilities.org. The three sovereign
entities in the United States are the federal government, the
states and indigenous tribes, but according to Bill Tripp, a
member of the Karuk Tribe in Northern California, many people
are unaware of both the sovereign nature of tribes and the
wisdom they possess when it comes to issues of climate change
and natural resource management. “A lot of people don’t realize
that tribes even exist in California, but we are stakeholders
too, with the rights of indigenous peoples,” says Tripp. Tripp
is an Eco-Cultural Restoration specialist at the Karuk Tribe
Department of Natural Resources. In 2010, the tribe drafted an
Eco-Cultural Resources Management Plan,