Navigating climate change adaptation assistance for communities: a case study of Newtok Village, Alaska

Abstract

Climate change is significantly impacting Alaska Native Villages (federally recognized tribes) as well as other rural and place-based communities that wish to continue their traditional lifeways. While many communities are looking to state and federal governments for assistance with climate change and other emergencies, there are limits to assistance under the current political and legal framework. This article discusses strategies for climate change adaptation that Alaska Native Villages and similarly situated communities may be able to take on their own. The article acknowledges the limits to these strategies and the gaps likely to remain in adaptation assistance. The article considers the Native Village of Newtok, Alaska, which is relocating to another site as an adaptation to climate change, as a case study in navigating adaptation assistance. While each community is different, several factors that have helped Newtok may benefit other communities: strong leadership; unified community vision and policy; a local coordinator serving as a continued point of contact; strong capacity for grantwriting; trusted, reasonably priced consultants; professional accounting services; and a housing policy to ensure fairness.

Improving Climate Adaptation Governance for Indigenous Communities: Lessons from Alaska Native Villages

“…15). A number of academic publications have also pointed to shortcomings and pitfalls in current systems (Bergstrom et al, 2022;Bronen & Chapin, 2013;Marino, 2012Marino, , 2015Pennington, 2023;Ristroph, 2017Ristroph, , 2021Shearer, 2012). Some of the most frequently cited barriers to environmental adaptation include 1) the high cost of construction in rural Alaska, where the estimated of relocating a single village exceeds US$100 million in many instances (US Army Corps of Engineers, Alaska District, 2006); 2) a scarcity of funding allocated to Alaska Native communities by government entities relative to the need for infrastructure development; 3) poor coordination between a multitude of federal agencies with overlapping mandates; and 4) barriers to accessing federal funds, e.g., through cost matching requirements.…”

Improving the Financial Resilience of Public Entities and Individuals for Natural Disasters: A Resource Guide for State and Local Government

“…In another case, flooding and coastal erosion in Newtok, Alaska, have made it an increasingly challenging place to live because of the significant risk of property damage or destruction. Still, many residents of the community-which was majority Alaska Native and has disproportionately high poverty rates-lacked the resources to relocate despite known risks (Ristroph, 2021).…”

Forced Emplacement

“…Even as they do so, they face the legacies of settler-colonial confi nement, with the path to relo-cation fi lled with the bureaucratic obstacles of a federal policy culture that cannot compute the preventative organized relocation of an entire community. Th e Alaska Native communities of Shishmaref (Marino 2012(Marino , 2015, Kivalina (Shearer 2011(Shearer , 2012, and Newtok (Ristroph 2021) all voted to relocate at the turn of the twenty-fi rst century, but their plans remain in suspension. Shishmaref has been deliberating about relocation for nearly fi ft y years.…”