Across the country, rising seas are threatening Indigenous lands. The Pamunkey Indian Tribe, which sits on a bend in the Pamunkey River in Virginia, was recently named one of the most endangered historic places in the country by The National Trust for Historic Preservation. Our Living Lands Producer Daniel Spaulding spoke with two representatives from the tribe about the work they are doing to protect Pamunkey lands and what is at stake.
The Pamunkey are dealing with both sea level rise and stormwater flooding. To combat these challenges, the tribe is taking a multi-pronged approach, including shoreline reinforcement and engineering assessments of the reservation. “Being an underserved community, a lot of the roads, a lot of the landscape wasn't really designed with these climate risks in mind,” Joseph Capella, the tribe’s Natural Resources Director, said.
For the Pamunkey, this work is about more than protecting the land. “We think of natural and cultural resources as being pretty inextricable,” Kendall Stevens, the tribe’s Cultural Resources Director, said. “So we're really worried about the cultural impacts too of losing this land.”
