. Estelle Thomson | CCPC
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Estelle Thomson
Grants and Tribal Development Officer

Native Village of Paimiut | Alaska Wildlife Alliance

Angute’karaq (Estelle Thomson) is an enrolled member of the Native Village of Paimiut, a descendant of one of the original five families of Paimiut. As Paimiut is a displaced tribe, her hometown is the Southwestern Bering Sea Coast community of Hooper Bay (originally Naparyarmiut- “the place  of the stake village people”). Estelle has lived in Washington and Alaska communities over her lifetime including Hooper Bay, Bethel, Seattle, Utqiaġvik, Fairbanks, Kingston, Poulsbo, Suquamish, Kenai, Big Lake and Anchorage.

She has previously served the Paimiut people as the Tribal Court Program Director, a Tribal and  Government consultant, and continues to serve as a member on her Tribes governing body, the Native  Village of Paimiut Traditional Council. Currently, Estelle is a Traditional Council Officer and works as the Grants and Tribal Development Officer for the Native Village of Paimiut. She is also a steering committee member for the Western Alaska Partnership, a commissioner for the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, and a working member of the Catalyst Fund for Indigenous communities.

As a Native Village of Paimiut Traditional Council member, Estelle spends a great deal of time educating local, state and federal agencies on her village, her culture and historical and intergenerational trauma; organizations on protocols and procedures in Tribal Courts and Tribal, advocating for her People and is a  liaison and does consultation between Alaska tribes in her region, the Department of Justice, the  Department of Interior, the Department of Commerce, the White House Council on Indian Affairs and  other local, state and federal agencies. She is also consults and works voluntarily with traditional healers and an international indigenous birthworkers network on a variety of projects and programs. She has  been published in the First Alaskans Magazine on an article entitled “Preserving Traditional Lifeways” and in the Journal of Environmental Health on “the Impact of Climate Change for Alaska Natives”.

Her mentors and teachers in traditional medicine span every major culture group in Alaska, several  tribes in Canada, the Lower 48, Asia, Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia. She loves learning and sharing  her knowledge and will continue to do so in various capacities and venues for the rest of her life. She  feels her most important job thus far has been a mother to her three intelligent, funny and incredible  children.

SESSIONS

Tribal adaptation in Western Alaska: Providing for People and Wildlife

Alaska Wildlife Alliance and the Native Village of Paimiut are using a Climate Vulnerability Assessment to prepare wildlife, people and habitat in 250,000 acres of Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta for rapid climate change. The Asqinaq – "a place of calmness and beauty” – are the lands, streams and coastline embraced by four Yup'ik villages in Western Alaska along the Bering Sea: Hooper Bay, Scammon Bay, Paimiut, and Chevak. This region holds the nesting grounds for millions of migratory birds, including 80 percent of the world's black brants and emperor geese, 40 subsistence fish species, and 12 marine mammal species including Pacific walrus, seals, whales, and threatened Stellers sea lions. The Delta is the homeland of over 50 indigenous communities, and is within the Biden Administration's Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area. By the end of this century, 7 million acres of this Delta are predicted to salinize or flood from sea-level rise, the permafrost will be gone, and the temperature will increase by an estimated 8 degrees F. Put simply, these communities are going underwater and the wildlife upon which they depend face enormous uncertainty. Losing this Delta to climate change not only carries dramatic local consequences, but also broader implications for global biodiversity. To understand the region's vulnerability, our assessment includes literature reviews, household surveys, climate modeling, and species vulnerability assessments; it is the first plan of this kind for these villages. The assessment is being used in Tribal management gatherings to develop pilot projects that resist, mitigate, or direct climate change into a more favorable future for people and wildlife. This presentation will review the findings of our assessment and outline our process for developing pilot projects that directly prepare people and wildlife for the changes ahead.