Dispossessed, Again: Climate Change Hits Native Americans Especially Hard
Many Native people were forced into the most undesirable areas of America, first by white settlers, then by the government. Now, parts of that marginal land are becoming uninhabitable.
By Christopher Flavelle and Kalen Goodluck
Photos by Kalen Goodluck
NYTimes, June 27, 2021
Damian Cabman, Diné, fills up four buckets with water for home-use at the Bataan Water Loading Station in Gallup, New Mexico on Friday, January 22, 2021. The Navajo Nation and nearby tribal communities face a growing water crisis, due in large part to drought and lack of infrastructure, forcing many to haul water from water stations to their homes for drinking, cleaning, washing or for their livestock.
The penned sheep herd of Wayne Harvey, Diné, in the Navajo Nation town of Many Farms, Arizona on January 23, 2021. Mr. Harvey had to sell his cattle and stop growing crops because of the draught.
Roland Tso, Diné, points out a looming mobile sand dune that is encroaching upon Wayne Harvey’s land in the Navajo Nation town of Many Farms, Arizona on January 23, 2021. As the drought worsens for Navajo Nation, vegetation that once held dunes together have been drying, transforming once stationary sand dunes into a mobile one, which threaten to bury homes and roads. A line of telephone poles that intersects the dune, Wayne said, had to be extended in height because the sand almost buried them.
Leon Yellow Mexican, Diné, works to remove a sand dune with his bulldozer at a customer’s home in Tuba City, Arizona in the Navajo Nation on Friday March 12, 2021. Tuba City is one of many Navajo Nation towns ridden with sand dunes and, as the drought worsens, dunes can blow against the side of residents’ homes, at times requiring the services of bulldozers to remove the sand dunes.
A Pat Gwin, Cherokee citizen, stands beside the heirloom garden in Tahlequah, Oklahoma on Tuesday, March 30, 2021. Mr. Gwin leads the Environmental Resources group as senior director and is an expert in Cherokee Nation’s cultural heirloom seeds, which need careful preservation measures to keep plants from cross-pollinating and now additional sprinkler systems because of a worsening draught.
A massive sand dune stands just outside of Tuba City, Arizona in the Navajo Nation on Friday March 12, 2021. Because of the draught, Tuba City is ridden with sand dunes that can blow against the side of residents’ homes or obstruct roads, at times requiring the services of bulldozers to remove.
Snow falls in Gallup, New Mexico, a large Navajo community outside Navajo Nation on Saturday, January 23, 2021.