Our Living Lands

For millennia, Indigenous peoples have intentionally set fires to care for the land. The Mountain West News Bureau's Murphy Woodhouse reports how a new law in California has opened the door to restore cultural burning - a potential model for other Western states.

Indigenous communities in Alaska's North Slope rely on Walrus for subsistence but climate change has shifted walrus habits. The U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Alaska Museum of the North are working with Indigenous hunters to understand these changes and document traditional knowledge.

A group of young Indigenous men spent a week on the Wind River Reservation for a photo camp with National Geographic. The students camped, fished, explored and even helped with a bison harvest, all while honing their skills as storytellers and photographers.

In June, the US government withdrew from an agreement designed to protect salmon and renewable energy in the Columbia River Basin. Our Living Lands Producer Daniel Spaulding spoke with Erik Holt, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe's Fish and Wildlife Commission, about the future of salmon in the region.

For the Nez Perce, and many tribes across the country, devastating wildfires have become more common. Lauren Paterson from Northwest Public Broadcasting reports on a new generation of Nez Perce firefighters in Idaho.

As rising seas threaten many Indigenous communities, two villages in Alaska's Kenai Peninsula are considering a project that would harness the power of ocean waves.

Across the country, rising seas are threatening Indigenous lands. The Pamunkey are dealing with both sea level rise and stormwater flooding. 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.

As the climate crisis worsens, the very ground on which some Indigenous communities built their homes is shifting before their eyes. A new podcast looked at how tribes in Alaska and Louisiana are losing their land to climate change, forcing them to make tough decisions about whether to stay or to leave.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel recently reported on the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe’s mobile health clinic, which provides health care to about 2,000 Indigenous people in Nevada. Roedel spoke to Our Living Lands Producer Daniel Spaulding about the ways climate change is impacting Indigenous health, and what tribes are doing about it.

The rural healthcare shortage has hit some tribal nations especially hard. One tribe in Nevada has found a solution: a doctor’s office on wheels.