Funding support to complete the design and then launch the UArizona Native American Web Portal Research Data Base and Inventory of Resources and Programs (“Grand Challenges” pillar- identified in the overall 2019 Strategic Plan for the University of Arizona).

As part of the 2019 University of Arizona Strategic Plan Native American Advancement and Tribal Engagement Initiative (UA Native American SP), the University of Arizona (UA) Provost’s Office and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe have agreed to establish the UA’s first tribal micro campus on the Pascua Yaqui Reservation (Note: this is partial funding).

The award supports a part-time intern to update the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resource Water Development Strategy. The research intern will work with Dr. Tulley-Cordova from the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources (NNDWR) and Chris Shuey from the Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The project aims to identify COVID-19 high-risk areas in the Navajo Nation. Through UArizona’s collaborations regarding water, health, and environmental health, project leaders will create a map that combines water quality, water infrastructure, health, and socio-economic data to identify areas on the Navajo Nation that are most at risk for a COVID-19 spike in the fall due to lack of access to water, food, and energy. 

The project aims to address the urgent need for food, energy, and water on the Navajo Nation that has been intensified due to COVID-19. The project leaders will use pressure-driven desalination methods, nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO) for the treatment of brackish waters such as those on the Navajo Nation while producing high-quality water. The system will be powered by solar panels.  

The team will construct and deploy two off-grid mobile water purification units to test the system. The overall goal of the project is to provide mid and long-term solutions to the food, energy, and water challenges in the Navajo Nation.

Funds for an Administrative Assistant to the newly appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, (UNSRRIP/Special Rapporteur), Francisco Cali Tzay. 

The project's aim is to inspire underserved Native American and Hispanic youth to pursue STEM careers. The project focused on strengthening opportunities related to the nexus of social justice and the environment in the education pipeline (k-12) for underserved Native Americans and Hispanic youth. The project prepared students with the necessary math background for them to take advanced math courses by 12th grade to increase the number of underserved youth placing into higher prerequisite math courses required in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). 

Graduate Student Support for Karletta Chief, UArizona Department of Environmental Science.

Recipient: Nikki Tulley, second-year Ph.D. student, UArizona Department of Environmental Science

Ms. Tulley will assist Dr. Chief on the Indigenous Food, Energy & Water Security and Sovereignty (Indige-FEWSS) program. Indige-Fewss aims to develop a diverse workforce with intercultural awareness and Food-Energy-Water Security (FEWS) expertise to address FEWS challenges in indigenous communities.

The project's aim is to inspire underserved Native American and Hispanic youth to pursue STEM careers. The project focused on strengthening opportunities related to the nexus of social justice and the environment in the education pipeline (k-12) for underserved Native Americans and Hispanic youth. The project prepared students with the necessary math background for them to take advanced math courses by 12th grade to increase the number of underserved youth placing into higher prerequisite math courses required in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). 

Since at least the mid-1990s, United States immigration policies have harshly affected people and places across the Sonoran Desert border region. In an attempt to ‘secure’ the border, these policies have militarized and effectively ‘weaponized’ the desert landscape, using infrastructure and enforcement to funnel migration into the hottest, driest, and most sparsely populated zones. The hoped-for result is that the ruggedness, isolation, and extreme heat would deter migrants from attempting to cross. Instead, the border has become a collective site of humanitarian and ecological crisis.

Social justice and environmental groups in the region have responded with great courage and creativity, but their voices are so often lost in the political fray and drowned out by the stridency of popular media. In particular, they face two central challenges: 1) their work remains largely isolated -- that is, these groups are, with some important exceptions, not in dialogue with one another; and 2) their unique data are rarely available to a broader public, let alone shared among different non-profit groups to increase effective collaboration. This partnership collaboration aims to build a team that works for an ethical and equitable program of collaborative inquiry among academic, humanitarian, and environmental communities. We hope to break down the silos of border research and nurture the production of much-needed local knowledge on the region. Our overarching reason for this partnership, therefore, is to begin developing a framework for collaboration between researchers and community partners to protect, extend, and communicate the innovative local ways that human and non-human communities have resisted, restored, and flourished in the context of border militarization.

The primary project partners (co-leads) -- UA Southwest Center, Southern Border Communities Coalition, and Borderlands Restoration Network -- will work toward a common language and collective goals for sharing data and local knowledge on the impacts of border militarization in the Sonoran Desert region. Such a partnership brings together a diverse array of backgrounds and perspectives: humanistic, environmental, and social.

This partnership aims to strengthen the Tucson Cooperative Network (TCN). The TCN promotes and supports the creation of worker-owned cooperatives, growing a community with fair wages, equal rights, equity and mutual collaboration. We focus on regenerative businesses such as rainwater harvesting, habitat restoration, sustainable food production, and individual capacity building centered on indigenous values that respect all beings. These businesses regenerate natural, social and cultural capital and build resilience to climate change. We work with all people without discrimination and prioritize immigrants, women, LGBTQ+, people who are low-income, and people of color. By supporting these marginalized populations to become business owners, we restore socioeconomic equality to achieve social justice.

Our network organizations (see Question 3) focus on supporting local/regional communities to achieve environmental sustainability and environmental justice. By developing a viable business model for these activities, we create a more financially sustainable path for these critical activities. We envision the Southwest in the next 25 years prospers from businesses centered on regenerating instead of depleting natural, social and cultural capitals. This region also will support a strong ecosystem of democratically governed cooperative businesses. In this model, market capital flows to the population in need and the environment in need to restore ecological balance, enhance social collaboration, and strengthen democracy and economic equality. We take a network approach, focus on key players in our regional network, train them to become both cooperatives and cooperative promoters. Our approach is analogous to acupuncture, activating and strengthening critical nodal points in a network to achieve whole-system effects. This network approach not just moves the needle, but creates a socioeconomic movement that unites our society and restores natural balance.

As communities develop climate response plans to mitigate the hardships a changing climate brings, the gap between the haves and have-nots becomes apparent. This is seen even in Tucson, the third-fastest-warming city in the U.S., where inequity results in significantly less tree shade in the southern parts of the city compared to the north. Developing the next generation of environmental leaders to address these challenges locally requires the inclusion of people from diverse backgrounds. However, many young people do not gain exposure to environmental science and climate change topics, nor do they build connections to their local environments, in part because their teachers are not well versed in these topics.

This project brings together Sky School and Project WET with the Tucson Unified School District. We will recruit two cohorts of twenty 4th and 6th grade teachers in underserved schools for monthly, year-long professional development days on climate science and sustainability, emphasizing local issues. Through connections with the University of Arizona researchers and community leaders, teachers will build knowledge of the science behind climate change and its local impacts. They will be supported by curriculum experts in creating engaging lessons to implement with their students. As a final project, students and teachers will utilize project-based learning to create and carry out an action plan on a sustainability topic they identify as important in their school or community.

This project will develop a cohort of teachers engaged in climate and sustainability, who will influence students at underserved schools for years to come.