Mike Williams: Climate change hits Native communities hardest

Let us be clear: The Obama Administration has done more for our Tribes than any other administration in United States history. No other Administration has held annual meetings with tribal leaders or established a White House Native Nations Council. We are grateful the Obama Administration created a Climate Change Action Plan and established a State, Local and Tribal Task Force on Climate Resilience. But we need something even bolder, something that enables tribes a fair opportunity to tackle climate disruption, something to meet this grave threat on its terms, something that will also keep with the trust responsibility.

Climate disruption is a fast-moving reality striking at the very being of our indigenous communities, cultures and ways of life. We are place-based people. This means when our homes, environment, resources and quality of life are destroyed, we cannot leave our reservations and communities that we were placed on by the federal government. The fabric that keeps our peoples and cultures together is being torn asunder by a human-caused phenomenon we did not cause or choose.

Compared to States, we are even further behind the eight ball in our ability to respond, due to a lack in the fulfillment of funding and program development for our governments under our treaties and the trust responsibility of United States federal government.