Grassland, forest and riparian ecosystems on mixed-ownership federal lands adjacent to the crow indian reservation: Developing a protective shield for sustainability of the environment and culture from the impacts of climate-related disturbance

Between 2016 and 2018, the USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station’s Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute hosted a team of scholars to reflect on how Federal agencies can best prescribe restoration for conditions associated with climate change-induced disturbance to protect sustainability in mixed-ownership lands, with a focus on the Upper Missouri River Basin. Phase 1 of this project was a review of natural resources and current threats to these resources on mixed-ownership lands adjacent to the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana and Wyoming, USA. Phase 2 was aimed at designing and explaining a model of adaptive environmental management (the Protective Shield Framework), based on Indigenous principles to increase resilience, to bolster resistance to climate-and human-related disturbance on fire-adapted ecosystems, and to implement restoration from such impacts in sustainable ways. This effort included specific examples of Crow knowledge to demonstrate the shield framework for management of knowledge related to resistance and restoration. We posit that, in using Indigenous knowledge for the conservation and protection of natural resources in this region of the Upper Missouri River Basin, public land managers can more effectively build a holistic and inclusive resilience regime against the impacts of climate change.