The Rising Voices Center for Indigenous and Earth Sciences
Rising Voices is a global community of engaged Indigenous leaders, Indigenous and non-Indigenous environmental experts, students, and scientific professionals, including representatives from tribal, local, state, and federal resource management agencies, academia, tribal colleges, and research organizations.The program is co-administered by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR|NCAR) and the Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network, in partnership with Haskell Indian Nations University, the Indigenous Peoples’ Climate Change Working Group, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office for Coastal Management. Rising Voices Working Groups convene each year at the Rising Voices annual workshops to discuss emerging issues and priorities around particular climate-related topics including Energy, Health, Phenology, Relocation/site expansion, and Water.
Broad public participation in Rising Voices is welcomed through an annual workshop series. Participants came together from across the nation – including Hawai‘i and Pacific Islands, Alaska, Northwest, Southwest, the Plains, Midwest, Gulf states, and Northeast – for a rich and honest discussion regarding the complex climate change challenges facing Indigenous peoples, current adaptation and mitigation strategies, protection of Indigenous knowledge, sustainable Indigenous practices, and political and institutional barriers.
Rising Voices holds the following values:
- Remove the boundaries between science and society
- Grow a network of collaborators with diverse cultural, community, geographic, and educational backgrounds
- Include a diversity of views and opinions, including acknowledging the inherent value of Indigenous knowledge systems and Indigenous science, adaptive practices, and processes
- Advocate relational-based, as opposed to extractive or transactional-based, science
- Listen, learn, and share between and across cultures and generations
- Prioritize relationship-building and developing trust over time
- Respect and awareness of diverse experiences and histories as current relationships and collaborations are shaped by colonial histories
Rising Voices has submitted recommendations to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) and the U.S. State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research, which hosts Rising Voices, is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Phone: (303) 497-8917
Sectors:
