Climate Transformation and Stewardship: Reflections on Meaningful Collaboration to Support Indigenous‐Led Research

Abstract

We are a group of non-Indigenous and Indigenous scientists, culture bearers, and natural resource managers who came together with the aid of a boundary-spanning organization to conduct research to support climate-resilient ecological and cultural restoration carried out by the Tribal communities of southern California. Climate change and other environmental harms caused by human industrial activities disproportionately burden communities that have contributed the least to the problem. Addressing the environmental injustices wrought by climate change requires relationships between Indigenous peoples and other entities in society that are built on consent, trust, accountability, and reciprocity-qualities that are historically lacking in Western academic institutions. Therefore, co-designed and co-led research with Indigenous communities is desired to achieve equal collaboration in building deeper environmental understanding and implementing management strategies that reflect shared priorities between Western conservation agendas and Tribal Nations. In this paper, we share foundational principles for meaningful engagement and implementing community-led climate adaptation planning that centers Tribal community partners and the core tenets of respect, responsibility, reciprocity, and relationships. We describe our project aimed at advancing a model for Indigenous-led climate adaptation in Southern California, USA, focused on restoring resilient ecological communities, and reflect on lessons learned by researchers and environmental stewards about co-creation of climate futures from this collaboration. These reflections inform and improve our collaborative framework so that it can be applied more widely.