Native Capacity Building to Address Effective Drought Management

The Inter Tribal Buffalo Council sees a need for the formation and implementation of drought-related strategic plans for Native American Reservations within its Membership Regions. As evidenced by a lack of planning, few communities are prepared to engage in the formation and implementation of a drought planning process because of lack of know-how. The purpose of this project is to enhance Tribal system resilience to drought by developing models using the Tribal Bison Programs that can be used to demonstrate various technology transfer means and methods for use by other Socially Disadvantaged Farmers or Ranchers and Indian Tribes. Specifically, an evaluation/assessment of the impacts of drought across member Tribes, their response to drought and the effectiveness of the responses will be used as the basis for regional trainings that will involve the adoption of the appropriate best management practices and associated technologies into each Tribe’s Bison Management Plan. On line databases will be created for the Tribes that include a resource library for drought management including links to entities that forecast drought, assistance for drought response, and technical data would enable the Tribes to adequately prepare system responses to drought. Regional trainings will be provided on the development and usage of the Tribal databases and drought management resource library. Implementation of conservation technologies, management, practices, systems, procedures, and approaches will also be supported. This could include alternative feeding systems, water and range enhancements and fodder systems.