RONAN, MONTANA — The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have continued implementing their climate plan on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana after losing state support and federal funding. This year, the plan focuses on reducing wildfire risk and creating safe havens from smoky air for the reservation's 33,000 residents.

The plan outlines measures to prepare for longer wildfire seasons, heat waves, drought, and shrinking snowpack, and covers projects related to people, forestry, water, air, and wildlife. It also includes projects on wind energy development, water conservation, and ecosystem restoration, and incorporates Traditional Ecological Knowledge throughout. The Flathead Reservation sits in a glacially-carved valley where smoke from Canada, Washington, and Oregon can settle.

Mike Durglo Jr., the tribes' climate change coordinator for nearly 20 years, wrote one of the first tribal climate action plans in the United States over 15 years ago. He also served as chairman of the Environmental Protection Agency's Regional Tribal Operations Committee and led climate planning workshops for tribes in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and the Dakotas.

"It's really hard for me and for a lot of people to even come up with a list of priorities, because it's, it's all a priority. It all impacts us. It's all connected," Durglo said. "You can't say, well, the grizzly bear is the most important, or the eagle is most important, or the salmon or the trout, or whatever, because everything depends on everything else."

Montana drafted a state climate plan in the early 2000s, but the plan has been shelved and some projects abandoned under the current Republican governor. Montana lawmakers passed legislation barring the state from regulating greenhouse gas emissions unless the federal government does so first. The Trump administration halted federal funding for many renewable energy projects, and the tribes' $20 million grant from the Solar for All program was canceled earlier this year. Montana experienced a record-breaking warm spring this year, with snowpack well below average across much of the state.

Warmer temperatures, beetle outbreaks, and an invasive fungus have killed half of the whitebark pine population since the 1990s. The tribes have been harvesting cones from healthy whitebark pines to regrow seedlings resistant to the fungus, and the tribes' Department of Forestry Nursery is propagating the trees. Durglo named a lone whitebark pine Ilawya, a word he said in a podcast interview means "my great, great, great, grandparent."

The U.S. government returned management of the National Bison Range to the tribes in 2022. The range covers roughly 19,000 acres in the center of the reservation and is home to a herd of 350 bison. The tribes are working to restore its grassland ecosystem to its former state as bison habitat. Bison graze selectively over large areas, leaving some vegetation untouched.