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WASHINGTON — Centuries of land loss and forced displacement have left Native Americans significantly more exposed to the effects of climate change, new data adding to the debate about how to address climate change and racial inequality in the United States.

It took seven years to compile and Published Thursday in the journal Sciencemarks the first time that researchers have been able to measure on a large scale what Native Americans have long believed to be true: that European settlers and later the United States government pushed Native peoples into marginal lands.

“Historic land dispossession is a major contributor to extreme climate change vulnerability for tribes,” said Kyle Whyte, one of the study’s authors, a professor at the University of Michigan and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

The new data comes at a time when the United States is increasingly suffering from severe heat waves, drought, wildfires and other disasters made worse by a warming planet. The authors argue that by showing that government actions are exposing Native Americans more to climate change, the data strengthens the case for trying to compensate for this damage, albeit imperfect.

“This isn’t just a story of past harm,” said Justin Farrell, a Yale University professor and one of the study’s authors. “We have to think of ways to account for this history.”

To quantify the effects of forced migration on climate exposure, the authors created a database of historical land bases and land loss for 380 individual tribes, based on data from tribal nations’ own records, land transfer agreements, and other federal archives. Most of the data covered the period from the 1500s to the 1800s.

The authors then compared the amount of land tribes they used to have with each tribe’s current reservations. In total, the amount of land shrank by 98.9 percent. In many cases, comparison was not possible: Of the 380 tribes they examined, 160 today do not have a federal or state-recognized land base.

But for the remaining 220 tribes, the authors found that their present-day territory is, on average, only 2.6 percent of their historic land – a reduction of an average of 83,131 square miles.

In addition to occupying much less land, most tribes were driven from their historic lands. The average distance between historic and present lands was 239 kilometers (149 miles); One tribe, Kickapoo, moved 1,366 kilometers (849 miles).

More extreme hot days

Tribes were not only pushed into smaller lands far from their original lands; these lands also have less hospitable climates.

The authors measured exposure to extreme heat in each tribe’s present territory by tabulating the average number of annual days above 100 degrees Fahrenheit between 1971 and 2000, and then doing the same for historic soils.

In general, they found that existing soils experience two additional days of extreme heat each year. But for some tribes the difference is much greater.

The Mojave tribe, whose current land is on the banks of the Colorado River, lives an average of 117 days above 100 degrees Celsius, or 62 days longer than in their historical land.

The Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona recorded an average of 57 days above 100 degrees Celsius, compared with just two days on its historic territory that includes higher ground. Located along the California and Arizona border, Chemehuevi experienced an average of 84 days of extreme heat each year; that’s 29 days longer than on its historic territory, which also includes higher ground.

More extreme heat means higher electricity costs, according to Brian McDonald, secretary of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe. These high costs are particularly difficult because many residents have low incomes, he said.

According to Nikki Cooley, co-director of Tribes & Climate Change, extreme heat is encouraging tribesmen to leave their reservations and move to cities where there is greater access to air-conditioned spaces and more transportation options to reach those places. program at Northern Arizona University.

“We used to go to the high country where we did our summer camps in the past. Ms. Cooley, who is a citizen of the Diné (Navajo) Nation, is a place where we can cool off.” “We don’t have that because all of the high-altitude communities are off-reservation.”

‘You cut the umbilical cord’

Ms. Cooley said the heat has driven tribal members away from their communities, resulting in further erosion of Indigenous culture and language.

“You’re breaking the umbilical cords—the ties to the land and to the elderly who likely won’t be moving to these urban places with them,” he said.

The authors looked at the difference in other types of climate vulnerability. They found that another variation was precipitation: Across all 220 tribes, the average annual precipitation on existing lands was almost a quarter lower than on historic lands.

Among the less rainy tribes is the Pueblo of Laguna, whose current territory is west of Albuquerque. The average annual precipitation on the tribe’s current lands is about half that of their historic lands, according to new data.

Tribal members include Deb Haaland, whom President Biden appointed as the first Native American to lead the Department of the Interior responsible for tribal lands.

Secretary Haaland’s office declined a request for an interview about the steps his agency is taking to make tribal nations more resilient to the effects of climate change.

Representative Teresa Leger Fernández, a Democrat from New Mexico and chair of the House of Representatives’ United States Indigenous Peoples Subcommittee, praised Mr Biden’s proposed infrastructure bill, which includes $216 million for climate resilience and adaptation to tribal nations.

More than half of that money, $130 million, would go to “community relocation” that helps Native Americans leave dangerous areas.

“That’s not enough. But it’s much more than we’ve gotten so far,” Ms. Leger Fernandez said in an interview. She said the government should pursue other options, including helping to transfer more land to the tribal countries that previously occupied that land – the following Using federal money to purchase private land, including land currently held by the federal government, or from willing sellers.

“Be informed and educated about our nation’s difficult history,” said Ms. Leger Fernandez. “I think all those options are on the table.”

Paul Berne Burow, another co-author of the paper and a PhD student at Yale, said giving back land should be seen as a form of compensation, as well as a way to make tribal nations more resilient to the changing climate.

“There are some really meaningful, deep connections that people need to place,” said Mr. Burow. “Giving back dispossessed land is one of the best things that can be done to start addressing these inequalities.”