NPR · 18 hours ago

How Indigenous Tribes Are Leading Climate Action in Montana

Mike Durglo Jr. has spent nearly two decades as his tribe's climate change coordinator, guided by an ancient whitebark pine he calls Ilawya-"my great, great, great, grandparent"-a tree that embodies what he's fighting to preserve. As federal climate funding evaporates and Montana's state government abandons its own climate plans, Durglo continues the work his ancestors began centuries ago, weaving Traditional Ecological Knowledge with Western science to protect everything from sacred trees to breathable air. "It's really hard for me and for a lot of people to even come up with a list of priorities, because it's all a priority," he explains, describing a worldview where grizzly bears, eagles, salmon, and people are inseparable threads in one fabric. His approach-mapping air quality, creating clean air refuges, restoring bison habitat, and sharing what works with other tribes-reveals something older and wiser than policy: that caring for land and caring for community have always been the same act. He's planting trees and building air filters so his great-great-great grandchildren will know someone saw them coming.