NASA supports Akwe:kon Press' Native Americas climate changes issue

Akwe:kon Press staff members in their office in the Akwe:kon residence house are, from left, José Barreiro, editor in chief; Mar Perez, office assistant; Brendan White, production manager; and Leslie Logan, managing editor. Matthew Fondeur/University Photography

By Franklin Crawford

In an extraordinary partnership with NASA, the Akwe:kon Press at Cornell has published a double issue of its award-winning journal, Native Americas, titled "Global Warming, Climate Change and Native Lands." The special issue will be released this month and features the work of 20 Native American writers and scholars.

Sponsored by a $61,000 grant from NASA's office of Earth Science Enterprises, the double issue is the result of an unprecedented effort from NASA to seek Native American perspectives on the impact of climate change in the United States.

"Native peoples have a primary relationship with the natural world and possess keen observational powers and oral histories that are now being corroborated by scientists," said José Barreiro, Akwe:kon Press editor in chief. "NASA scientists are taking Native practices in a serious and substantial way, and this partnership is a result of that interest."

The project has its origins in the U.S. National Assessment on Climate Change, a mandate that grew out of 1990 U.S. Global Change Research Program. Nineteen government agencies, including NASA, are charged with researching climate change in the United States. NASA sponsored 18 regional workshops to gather environmental observations from a spectrum of stakeholders: farmers, ranchers, fishermen, resource managers and even politicians -- anyone who might be affected by the research. At the regional meeting in 1998 for the northern Great Plains at the University of North Dakota, NASA's Nancy Maynard had a revelation.

"There were two Native Americans who spoke at the workshop and I was horrified to realize Native peoples had been left out of the whole equation," said Maynard, director of application, commercialization and education at NASA's Earth Science Enterprises "I'd never heard the Native perspective on the issue before and it hit me like a lightning bolt: Where has the science community been? The Native philosophy and practice is to look at the earth as a whole system -- the way NASA scientists look at the world."

Incensed and inspired, Maynard sought collaboration with Native elders and helped to organize the Circles of Wisdom: Native Peoples/Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop held in Albuquerque, N.M., in November of 1998. Barreiro attended the workshop, where the Akwe:kon Press was appointed by the elders to 1) serve as liaison between NASA and native communities and 2) disseminate this pertinent information to as wide an audience as possible.

"It is compelling that Native observations of climate change are entirely consistent with scientific findings," said Tim Johnson, deputy assistant director for Community Services at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian and lead contributor to the Native Americas special edition. "It seems basic to me that we all must share and express universal concern about the world our future generations will inherit from us. What started as a whisper many years ago -- the mounting data collected and shared by Native peoples in collaboration with western scientists -- has now become a clarion call to the world. Man-made global warming is here and we have yet come to terms with its ultimate consequences."

NASA's grant will allow Akwe:kon to print and distribute 35,000 copies of the journal. Normal distribution numbers run between 6,000 and 7,000. January's issue will be sent to every Native school in the U.S. as well as to universities, public libraries, Congress and the media.

Maynard stressed the importance of the role of Akwe:kon Press in the project.

"One of the most difficult issues in building bridges between the scientific community and Native peoples is lack of communication and sensitivity. Frankly scientists aren't known for their sensitivity, and that's important when we're exchanging this type of information," he said. "Native Americas happened to be a perfect communications channel that transmits in both directions -- to the Native Americans and to the science community."