A Story of “Rising Voices” and Intercultural Collaboration

Until recently, the voices and wisdom of Indigenous peoples have been largely excluded from climate change science, decision making, and governance. Encouragingly, a shift has emerged in the last few decades. Today, a number of scientists realize the critical importance and value of Indigenous peoples' wisdom, observations, insights, and knowledge. This shift in awareness is visible in initiatives from climate assessments to university- and agency-based projects. Yet, there are few venues devoted to facilitating this work and to creating an intercultural collaborative process based on courage, respect, justice, equality, and reciprocity that addresses our changing climate. Provisioning that missing space is precisely what the Rising Voices: Climate Resilience through Indigenous and Earth Sciences program sets out to do. This is a story about the development of an intercultural network and how the two co-authors—a public and an environmental anthropologist—came to bear witness, to know, and were called to act.