Northwest Boreal Partnership

The Northwest Boreal Partnership is a collaboration of diverse individuals and organizations supporting healthy lands and communities across Alaska and northwestern Canada.

Partnership members participate in a workshop on the Land & Peoples Relationship Model, led by Joe Copper Jack. Learn more about this model at respectcareshare.ca

Steering Committee members visit the Little Tonsina River Fish Passage Project in Copper Center, AK

News and updates on what we are up to!

Growing a Network of Indigenous Guardians Across Alaska

The Northwest Boreal Partnership is part of a team led by Indigenous partners as part of an emerging Alaska Guardians Network working to grow Indigenous Guardians (also known as Rangers or Sentinels) across Alaska.

Indigenous Guardians Panel at Alaska Mining Impact Conference
The Northern Latitudes Partnerships helped to host a featured panel at the Alaska Mining Impacts Conference in May held in Girdwood. Warren Jones (Indigenous Leadership Initiative & Resources Legacy Fund), Hannah-Marie Ladd (Indigenous Sentinels Network, Aleut Community of St. Paul Island), and Shawn Watts (Resources Legacy Fund) spoke on a panel moderated by Leanna Heffner (Northwest Boreal Partnership) as they shared stories and strategies regarding how Guardians empower local communities to take care of their traditional homelands through stewardship, Indigenous knowledge, science & environmental monitoring, and language revitalization. The panel shared that Guardians programs not only provide regenerative economic models for local communities (as opposed to relying on resource extraction), but they also can provide monitoring and accountability for existing and proposed mines.

Partnership Director Leanna Heffner and fellow panel presenters at the Alaska Mining Impacts Conference.

Growing Support for Guardians in Alaska
During First Alaskan Institute’s Elders and Youth Conference the NLP helped organize a Guardian’s Lunch and Learn as part of a larger workshop on Sovereignty in Action. The event was very well attended, and many folks from around the state came together to learn about existing Guardians programs and explore potential expansion in different regions. A few days later, during the Alaska Federation of Natives Annual Convention, Guardians received further support from the organization. The Aleut Community of St. Paul Island brought forth “A Resolution to Recognize and Support Sentinel, Ranger, and Guardian Programs to Strengthen Tribal Sovereignty, Food Security, and Climate Resilience.” The Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) is the largest statewide Native organization in Alaska, and its support of Guardians programs is a wonderful affirmation of the importance of Guardians. The full text of the resolution is available here.

Northern Connections: Bridging Indigenous Knowledge & Observation Efforts

After four years of work, the Northern Connections collaboration that we helped to lead is coming to a close. The Northern Connections program supported and connected Indigenous-led science and knowledge programs focused on food security, land and water stewardship, environmental changes, and climate adaptation efforts in Alaska and northwest Canada. We teamed up with the Arctic CBM Atlas to create and disseminate a collaborative survey to provide both a network analysis for CBM programs based in Alaska and northwest Canada, an update to the Arctic CBM Atlas, and a summary report for CBM programs across the circumpolar Arctic that chose to participate. The survey was disseminated to hundreds of programs over the course of several months, and we are in the final stages of a comprehensive report from this project. NWBP’s Director Leanna Heffner, as a co-PI on this project, collaborated with Copper Jack, an Elder and Indigenous Land Planner based in Canada, to bring him to Alaska and provide a 2-day in-person workshop on the Land & Peoples Relationship Model. This model brings together Indigenous Knowledge and western science in a framework for collaborative planning for land use, conservation, climate adaptation, natural resource management, etc. We also supported the participation of two Alaskan youth in participation in a fellowship program bringing together youth leaders across the Yukon to be advocates for salmon and traditional connections to salmon called To Speak and Swim with Salmon. We are in the process of finalizing three major reports from this project: the Northern Connectsion Network Analysis Summary Report; the Arctic CBM Atlas Survey Report; and the Data Management & Data Sovereignty Guide. These reports will be disseminated to workshop and training participants, as well as the broader networks of project partners.

Northern Connections Partner Organizations

A Thriving Model for Food Cultivation in Venetie by the Teedriinjik Tribal Conservation District

For the past 5 years, the NLP has been partnering with the Teedriinjik Tribal Conservation District (TCD) in Venetie & Arctic Village on a federal grant funded by the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) to support traditional foods and cultivated food stewardship. Northwest Boreal Partnership staff have helped to organize several gatherings in Arctic Village and Fairbanks, and worked with the TCD staff and community members to help revive their community garden in Venetie, purchase supplies and clear land for a new community garden in Arctic Village, and engage in initial planning and fundraising to start an environmental monitoring program in partnership with the Indigenous Sentinels Network. Teedriinjik Coordinator Kayleen Ward-Peter Thumma has been an inspirational leader and with the help of Calypso Farms and APU Kellogg Farm, has grown the program and the Venetie garden is thriving under her green thumb, providing an amazing amount of fresh produce for the community!

Teedriinjik TCD gardeners and partners gather at a training provided by Calypso Farms.

Featured Resources

The Northwest Boreal Partnership has helped create several resources for land managers, researchers, knowledge holders, subsistence harvesters, tribal and First Nation leaders, land use planners, and those who work in conservation.

US-Canada Transboundary and Indigenous-led Conservation
We helped organize a series of four international dialogues around strengthening transboundary conservation in Canada and the U.S., and together with a small task force worked to distill common themes and key ideas into a summary report. The resulting report is a starting point for launching further conversation and stimulating concrete actions toward achieving durable conservation outcomes for the peoples and ecosystems that span this critical area. Download and read the full report here.

Course on Indigenous-Led Land Planning in Alaska and Canada
In 2022, the Northern Latitudes Partnerships team, in partnership with US Fish & Wildlife Service and the University of Alaska Fairbanks Tribal Governance Program, offered a 6-part virtual course on “Indigenous-Led Land Planning”. The recordings from the course are available on our YouTube page. The full syllabus for the series is available for download here and includes links to many useful resources discussed in the course.

Drivers of Landscape Change in the Northwest Boreal Region
This book from the Northwest Boreal Partnership informs sustainable management, stewardship, and research in the north through examining the biological, natural, physical, and socioeconomic drivers of landscape change in the region. Watch this webinar with six experts and co-authors of the book! E-book and hardcopy editions are available for purchase for $30 USD on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble online, and the University of Chicago Press.