Indigenous Sentinels Network: Expanding Community-Based Monitoring to Address Rapid Environmental Change

The Northern Latitudes Partnerships are collaborating with the Aleut Community of St. Paul to help expand the Indigenous Sentinels Network (ISN) to provide remote Indigenous communities with tools, training, networking and convening, coordination, and new capacity for ecological, environmental, and climate monitoring. Alaska Native Tribes and Canadian First Nations see real potential for self-determination through data they collect, own and manage—while agencies see the potential to collaborate with communities to address their need for observations in remote locations where rapid changes are occurring.

Projects associated with this overall effort include 1) Tanana Chiefs Conference piloted ISN in 2019 to expand community-based monitoring in interior Alaska; 2) a $1.7 million dollar grant from the Natural Resources Conservation Service for the Northern Latitudes Partnerships to collaborate with Alaska's Tribal Conservation Districts on food sovereignty; 3) a collaboration with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments to implement ISN in 2-3 communities near the Yukon Flats Refuge to track climate change; 4) a project with the Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to work with tribes to expand the Anadramous Water Catalog, and thereby increase protections for anadromous fish habitat.

Our Role
Project Co-Lead

Project Leaders
Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, Ecosystems Conservation Office
Northern Latitudes Partnerships
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Contact
Lauren Divine: lmdivine@aleut.com
​Leanna Heffner: lheffner@alaskaconservation.org

More Information
Indigenous Sentinels Networkwww.beringwatch.net/ 

Topics
Monitoring, Climate Change, Subsistence & Harvested Foods, Wildlife, Adaptation

Approaches
Local and Indigenous Knowledge, Scientific Research