A little more about our work
The Alaska Climate Justice Program works alongside Alaska Native Tribal communities to uphold Tribal sovereignty and protect human rights as the climate crisis threatens the lands where these communities have thrived for thousands of years. Increasing flooding, erosion, and permafrost thaw are devastating these ancestral homelands, making our work more urgent than ever. As part of our ongoing mission, we are committed to dismantling policy barriers that obstruct Indigenous leadership and community-driven solutions—ensuring long-term resilience in the face of accelerating environmental change.
Global warming is occurring nearly four times faster in Arctic regions—including Alaska, the only Arctic state in the U.S.—than anywhere else on the globe. Rising temperatures are transforming the Arctic environment: warming oceans, increasing permafrost thaw, and decreasing Arctic sea ice, all of which threaten human health and safety. Among those threats is usteq, a Yup’ik word meaning catastrophic ground collapse, which can be caused by a combination of permafrost thaw, flooding, and erosion. Usteq threatens the structural integrity and usability of homes, buildings, and other infrastructure.
Warmer ocean temperatures also bring more intense and frequent storms to western Alaska’s remote coastal communities. Historically, sea ice has been a natural buffer from storm impacts but sea ice decline has left communities exposed to increasingly intense storms. A striking example is Typhoon Merbok, which barreled across western Alaska in September 2022, causing devastating wind, flood, and erosion damage in multiple communities.
Most residents of remote communities in western Alaska are Alaska Native and practice a subsistence lifestyle both for food security and cultural, economic, and social wellbeing, in continuation of their traditional ways of life. Many community members speak Yup’ik, Cup’ik, or Iñupiaq as their primary language.
Alaska Native communities experiencing the accelerating impacts of the climate crisis are faced with difficult decisions regarding how to adapt to protect the health and safety of residents and critical infrastructure. In response to accelerating environmental changes, communities are engaging in a continuum of adaptation responses ranging from protection-in-place, managed retreat, or relocation of the entire community. The Tribes located in these communities are also looking to the federal government, which has a trust responsibility to Tribes and their citizens as they navigate the climate crisis. And while federal coordination and funding to facilitate adaptation strategies are desperately needed, any such efforts must respect Tribal sovereignty and Tribal self-determination.
Ten climate-threatened Alaska Native Tribes that are making important decisions regarding adaptation and resilience—Akiachak Native Community, Akiak Native Community, Chevak Native Village, Chinik Eskimo Community, Native Village of Kipnuk, Native Village of Kwigillingok, Native Village of Kwinhagak, Native Village of Nelson Lagoon, Native Village of Nunapitchuk, and Organized Village of Kwethluk—have partnered with a project called Permafrost Pathways. Permafrost Pathways launched in 2022 to respond to the climate threats, including permafrost thaw, erosion, and flooding, facing Arctic communities. Permafrost Pathways is a joint effort between Woodwell Climate Research Center, Alaska Institute for Justice, Alaska Native Science Commission, and the Arctic Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School, bringing together Arctic residents, Indigenous knowledge holders, scientists, environmental justice and human rights experts, and climate policymakers.
Through Permafrost Pathways, Alaska Institute for Justice provides the ten partner Tribes with funding to hire full-time staff to work on environmental monitoring and climate adaptation strategies. As a result, over $430k is distributed amongst our partners annually. Through its work, Permafrost Pathways seeks to advance community climate resilience, continue to build and solidify relationships with partner Tribes, and increase climate change adaptation in all ten partner communities. Permafrost Pathways also seeks to develop a relocation governance framework that protects human rights, respects Tribal sovereignty, and includes community-driven science in collaboration with local Indigenous knowledge stewards and western data systems.
We’re proud to walk alongside our Tribal partners in advancing community-led climate solutions. Thank you for taking the time to learn about our work, partner Tribes, and affiliation with Permafrost Pathways. Your interest helps us elevate Alaska Native voices in the fight against climate change. Follow us on social media @alaskainstituteforfustice to keep up to date with happenings at AIJ and across Alaska’s remote Native communities.