University of California, Irvine
IN-2: Innovation 2

The UC Irvine Environment Institute hosted the first Southern California Tribal Listening and Strategy Session on Environmental Issues on October 20-21, 2012. The Session was a collaboration between the UCI Environment Institute and the Women's Earth Alliance (an NGO) to create a bridge between environmental researchers and tribal communities in the region. The fully booked event drew tribal community participants from across Southern California and researchers from throughout the state. The Session aimed to 1) train tribal community participants in how to conceptualize environmental challenges as research projects and how to design such research projects to meet community needs, 2) introduce participating researchers to the concept and emerging methods of community-engaged sustainability scholarship, 3) provide tribal community participants the opportunity to share their environmental challenges, and 4) explore possible synergies between identified external research needs of tribal communities and research capacities of attending researchers. http://triballistening.eventbrite.com/ contains more information about the program itself, attendees, and co-sponsors. Several efforts have unfolded from work begun at the Listening Session. For starters: • participation by tribal desert community members in the November 2012 Sonoran Desert Conservation, Ecology, and Natural History Research Symposium in Borrego Springs, CA, an event co-hosted by UCI • initial conversations between coastal tribal community members and other academic units at UCI • invitation to two Session participants to participate in related conferences: one on tribal participatory research during an upcoming conference on advancing ethical research, and one on Native Science • a service learning field placement for one Native student with the UCI Environment Institute and newly-launched Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples UCI will host a second Tribal Listening and Strategy Session on Climate Change in Borrego Springs, CA, in October 2013.

UC Irvine has not previously received a STARS innovation credit fort his practice, policy, program, or outcome.