Our Karuk Agroecosystem Resilience Initiative: xúus nu'éethti team has been mourning and reflecting on the recent police killings of Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Justin Howell, Sean Monterrosa, and Jamel Floyd, among countless others, and discussing the ongoing pattern of sanctioned violence against Black and non-Black Indigenous people and People of Color (BIPOC) by law enforcement officers. In our personal and professional lives, as well as with each other, we have been discussing approaches to radically reform policing, criminal justice and law enforcement institutions in our communities, as well as strategies for addressing systemic racism and white privilege in research in environmental science, food studies and conservation fields more specifically. We have been grappling with how to best practice anti-racism and centering of Black, Indigenous, and Peoples of Color first in our work, research and advocacy and how to deepen our anti-racist learning, commitments, practices and alliances collectively and individually. The UCB-Karuk partnership works to recognize that we are all coming to this conversation from different experiences, racial backgrounds, and situated perspectives.

Our team is composed of Indigenous and non-Indigenous members, based at different institutions - including the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources, UC Berkeley/UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the US Forest Service - and we are involved in different webs of personal and professional relations that are taking time to acknowledge our positionalities so we can act to support the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-racist practice. Academic partners on the grant affiliated with UC Berkeley's Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy & Management have also committed to the following actions. Team members with children are drawing on Black Lives Matter Instructional Library as an important resource for youth and teachers.

Read on to see our current efforts and pledges for further action.

Píkyav Field Insitute - K-12 Environmental Education Update

By: Heather Rickard (K12 Environmental Education Division Coordinator) and Bari Talley (Sípnuuk Division Coordinator)

Píkyav Field Institute staff recognize it's been a difficult transition for students, teachers and families with school closures and a shift to remote learning, and we sincerely hope this finds you all well. This summer, our Peekaavichvaans Intern, Aja Conrad, has provided summer work for local youth, looping them in to pressing community food security initiatives. She has connected that work to the higher education opportunities with our local university, Humboldt State University and our joint Karuk-University of Washington research project (more on that in the next newsletter!). Also, we are supporting the Karuk Education Department summer initiative for a virtual Math & Science camp. Learn about this effort for 5th-8th graders here.

Before schools were closed, Happy Camp Elementary 7-8th grade class completed a 4 week series on Fire Ecology and Cultural Fire with DNR's Fire & Fuels staff. Read more...

Sowing seeds of resilience & growing community: new Karuk Tribal farm

By: Jasmine Harvey (Karuk Dept. of Natural Resources)

We are in very uncertain times. This year has been marked with massive changes to society from a global pandemic and widespread social unrest, and nobody knows what tomorrow may bring. Although the Karuk Department of Natural Resources has always worked to ensure that our communities aren't faced with food insecurity, this year our efforts have grown substantially.  Read more...

KDNR researcher V. Preston running a transect

	UCB researcher D. Sarna-Wojcicki plotting GPS coordinates