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"Two-Eyed Seeing in Earth Observations: Co-Creating Data Tools and Capacity for Earth Observations Data Analysis in support of California's Land Transfer Policy"

A growing number of EJ and GIS-based tools exist now for underserved and overburdened communities, including California Native Americans. In addition to CEJST and EJScreen, these include, inter alia, 2 CalEnviroScreen 4.0, Digital Atlas of California Native Americans, Energy Equity Indicators Map, Tribal Directory Assessment Tool, Native Land Information System, etc. However, research with Tribal members indicate that existing EJ tools are not entirely accessible or useful for Native communities (Haley et.al., 2023). Presumably, however, greater research-based evidence supporting Indigenous claims for the restoration of lands, and access to tools that can help them identify lands that California’s policies and resources can be leveraged to return to Tribal protection, would be helpful. For instance, NASA recently launched new Equity & Environmental Justice (EEJ) projects and one of them importantly focuses on “the challenges that tribal groups face, such as image resolution, data access, time limits, IT infrastructure, and data sovereignty as well as including suggested strategies, policy suggestions, and capacity-building activities to solve the identified difficulties and promote increased use of spatial data in tribal setting (NASA, 2024).” 

A new study (as proposed here) that assesses the use of Earth observations in the context of a tangible policy and particularly from the perspective of understanding land use changes in the above identified contexts, can provide useful lessons in terms of their benefits and limitations to meet policy implementation needs. This can then inform development of a new GIS-based tool, as well as capacity-building programs that enable Native communities to develop and use the tool for land transfer policy implementation (all required NASA EEJ project outputs). 

It is well-known globally that 80% of the world’s biodiversity is found in the territories of Indigenous or local communities (Sobrevila, 2008). A number of case studies ranging across the Americas and Africa indicate that biodiversity conservation could be more effective in Indigenous protected areas than in State protected areas. Thus, this project hypothesizes that restoration of Indigenous conservation, including fire management, can improve forest watershed conservation and reduce the risk and damage of extreme wildfires to impacted communities, as well as public utilities if properly targeted. In California, both private and public lands have been returning to Indigenous Peoples in various parts of California. This project aims to utilize publicly available remote sensing data to monitor key environmental indicators in these reclaimed territories including (i.e., land use change, particularly in terms of the extent and conditions of meadow, forest cover and riparian/watershed vegetation) as well as burnt area extent, and to identify areas that could benefit from return to Indigenous stewardship (e.g., wildfire-prone degraded forest lands, areas under-managed by CPUC, etc.). 

This proposal is the product of exploratory conversations with a member of two California Native Tribes, who is the proposed Collaborator; with the PI and Co-I partnering to address the remote sensing and conservation interests to be identified by potential partner communities.