Climate Science Alliance team member Connor Magee joins CARCD to discuss Tribal partnership in panel discussion, “Growing Meaningful Collaboration while Facing Our 75 Years of Indigenous Underrepresentation”.
Climate Science Alliance team member Connor Magee participated in a panel at the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts (CARCD) 2020 CARCD Virtual Conference “The Future of a Resilient California Starts Here” that took place November 12th – 13th, 2020.
In the 75 year history of the CARCD Annual Conference this was the first time CARCD hosted a Tribal panel. The panel was opened by keynote speaker Wade Crowfoot, California Secretary for Natural Resources and was titled, “Growing Meaningful Collaboration while Facing Our 75 Years of Indigenous Underrepresentation”. The three panelist consisted of Jennifer Bates (Me-wuk) of Tuolumne Tribe, Meagan Baldy (Hupa) of the Klamath Trinity Resource Conservation District, and Connor Magee (Payomkawichum/Cahuilla) of the Climate Science Alliance. With over 200 panel attendees, the session focused on Indigenous approaches to land management, culture, community, food systems, and the opportunities present in growing mutual partnerships with California’s Tribal communities. Connor elaborated on how we can better work towards facilitating the development and delivery of Tribally-informed scientific information and tools by creating meaningful relationships and organizational integration of Tribal viewpoints and voices across Resource Conservation Districts’ (RCD) efforts and programs.
The CARCD Annual Conference provided a unique opportunity to connect directly with RCDs, which are recognized as the go-to hubs for conservation and have been implementing voluntary, locally-led conservation on public and private lands since 1937. All while embracing the understanding that meaningful progress will require a collaborative scaling up of solutions to these challenges. The CARCD brings together representatives from federal and state agencies, non-profits, private industries, farming communities, and resource conservation districts (RCDs). All to share knowledge, build partnerships, and address urgent natural resource challenges including climate-smart agriculture, the tree mortality crisis, community fire resilience, sustainable groundwater management, watershed health, social equity in conservation, and wildlife preservation.