The Sheward Partnership is proud to announce that we recently completed the Northern Cheyenne Tribe’s first Climate Action Plan through a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) program. This program provided $5 billion in grants to states, local governments, tribes, and territories to develop and implement plans for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other harmful air pollution. The EPA awarded the Northern Cheyenne Tribe funding to focus solely on Tribal government assets within the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. The CPRG required the Plan provide an overview of the Tribe’s significant GHG sources/sinks and sectors, establish near-term and long-term GHG emission reduction goals, and provide strategies addressing the highest priority sectors in response to the increasingly severe impacts of climate change on its people, natural resources, and infrastructure.
The Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation is a federally recognized Indigenous Tribe located in southeastern Montana on the approximately 699 square mile Northern Cheyenne Reservation. The Tribe currently has more than 11,000 enrolled Tribal members, with about 4460 living on the Reservation. The Reservation location is very remote and rural with few businesses and limited employment, housing, education, transportation, and health care resources. Despite many hardships, the Tribe maintains a strong, historic connection to its homeland and as a result of their dedicated efforts, the Tribe now owns 100% of its subsurface interests and nearly 100% of surface interests. This is a momentous and unique accomplishment, as few federally recognized tribal nations own this much of their land rights. This historical struggle is a direct expression of the value Northern Cheyenne peoples hold for their remaining homelands to prioritize the health and well-being of its territories over the economic benefits of resource extraction.
TSP lead efforts to complete a comprehensive GHG inventory and projections which were critical in determining focus areas to develop reduction measures. With this information, TSP then held multiple charrettes with Tribal leadership and other key stakeholders to develop a GHG reduction target and reduction measures that would benefit the entire community for the purpose of caring for all Tribal members, strengthening the mission Northern Cheyenne has become known for.
Charrette with Tribe Leadership
The Tribe set a progressive goal to become carbon neutral by 2035, defined as no net release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. They will accomplish this with energy efficiency measures, alternative energy sources and transportation options, and removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere via carbon sequestration projects on the Reservation. As identified by Tribal members, staff, and Council, reducing building energy use is the Tribe’s highest priority primarily via increased energy independence, resiliency, and constructing energy efficient buildings and housing while creating jobs and an improved infrastructure that all contribute to the Tribe’s equity and economic benefits. In achieving this goal, the Tribe hopes to promote Tribal sovereignty, community health and resiliency, and the natural environment through Indigenous solutions-based strategies and actions, partnership, and collaboration.
Like other small nations, the Tribe is not a major contributor to the gases that cause climate change, yet it must deal with the impacts from climate change on a daily basis. For Northern Cheyenne, developing a greenhouse gas reduction target is not one where it knowingly will be a solution to this global crisis, rather it is one that plays directly to its belief to live as one with the environment. Within this context, the Tribe’s way of life is not and should not be the main focus; however, pursuing a carbon neutrality goal will have an enormous, positive impact on Northern Cheyenne’s future.
Read the full Climate Action Plan here.
Project Team
Owner: Northern Cheyenne Tribe
Tribal Management and Development Team: Northern Cheyenne Tribe Council, Northern Cheyenne Environmental Protection Department, Northern Cheyenne Development Corporation, Morningstar Propane, Chief Dull Knife College
Sustainability Consultant: The Sheward Partnership
Renewable Energy Consultant: ProtoGen, Inc.
