Climate change is taking a toll on Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, home to Tewa-speaking people for thousands of years. Drought has made their forests a tinderbox, shrunk waterways and parched pastures and gardens.
Climate change is taking a toll on Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, home to Tewa-speaking people for thousands of years. Drought has made their forests a tinderbox, shrank waterways and parched pastures and gardens. Three wildfires have burned more than 80% of their forested land, leaving them vulnerable to flash floods that have sent trees and debris surging through the pueblo and destroyed infrastructure and wildlife habitat. Drought also makes it more difficult to grow crops near the Rio Grande and is triggering groundwater concerns. So the pueblo is restoring its watershed and exploring ways to conserve water and grow drought-tolerant crops so they can stay on their ancestral homeland.
In a northern New Mexican town, drought is forcing changes to water and crop management. The local Indigenous community, which has inhabited the area for thousands of years, is taking a lead in introducing time-tested, nature-based approaches.
For thousands of years, the Tewa people of Kha’p’o Owingeh have called Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico home. But heat and drought, exacerbated by climate change, have taken a toll on the the land.
Climate change is taking a toll on Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, home to Tewa-speaking people for thousands of years. Drought has made their forests a tinderbox, shrunk