Native America

Protecting tribal life ways and Indigenous knowledge across the Colorado Plateau

Tribal communities across the Colorado Plateau face daunting problems: loss of language and culture, 50 percent unemployment rates, lasting and damaging impacts of past uranium mining, dependence on revenues from endangered power plants and coal mines, and ever-increasing impacts of global warming. To ensure that the plateau’s bio-cultural diversity survives and thrives despite these difficult changes, tribal members, communities, and governments are being challenged to simultaneously balance cultural preservation, sustainable economic development, and environmental protection. Their success in doing so will determine the vitality of the plateau over the coming decades.