CLIMATE ACTION INVOLVES TRIBAL BROADCASTERS

Kyler Edsitty

For Immediate Release

July 12, 2022

When Native American elders on the Hopi Reservation say a prayer, they often include plants and the earth with living beings to emphasize the world's interconnectedness. Like other Indigenous cultures, the Hopi share a kinship to the land and its inhabitants.

Kinship is the driving force behind Native Public Media's Climate Action Program. Indian Country's broadcast community shares a responsibility to inform Tribal communities and to promote healthy, resilient, and engaged Tribal citizens.

Tribes know the world's climate crisis spells disaster for Native peoples. America's Tribal communities are at the frontline of climate change as glacial ice melts and temperatures rise. Native coastal villages in Alaska are falling into the sea as waters rise and drought depletes water sources for Arizona Tribes.

The problems and solutions are many. However, what is clear to Loris Taylor, Native Public Media's president and CEO, is the need to kick into gear the shared responsibility for the earth using the organization's and broadcast community's expertise.

"We have to do what we can, what is in our power, to activate kinship in building climate resiliency and give Mother Earth a hand. Human action causes climate change, and interconnected human action is necessary for widespread climate solutions. The melting of glacial ice in Alaska is related to the near extinction of bees and the wildfires that burned the San Francisco mountains in Arizona. Our Tribal radio and television stations have a role to play in climate action," Taylor states.

NPM's Climate Action Program will marshal the airwaves of Tribal radio stations in response to emergencies by utilizing community engagement planning, a kinship app that connects broadcasters with first responders, and multi-level early warning systems within the broadcast network. Funded with $100,000 by the First Nations Development Institute of Longmont, Colorado, the NPM Climate Action Program launched in July 2022.

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For more information about Native Public Media, visit www.nativepublicmedia.org