Existing Tribal Institutional Infrastructure and Resources Tribes are repositories of valuable human and natural resources with significant implications for addressing climate change issues. The land contained within Indian reservations is often in relatively undisturbed tracts, embracing a variety of microenvironments containing a wide range of indigenous plant and animal species. These species include many which can serve as key indicator species to monitor and document climate change. Reservation communities are composed of multi-generations of Indian families who have resided in the relatively fixed locations of federal reservations. These communities have first hand, detailed familiarity with environment and its history over long periods of time and through various types of economic development.
Most Indian cultures continue to rely upon strong oral traditions.
Community ecological knowledge about past climates in specific locations are passed on this way. Thus, tribal concerns naturally span many generations, and long-term strategic thinking is an ingrained tradition accounting for tribes' survival. Tribal cultural world views envision and accept the natural relationship between human and natural world. Basic cultural assumptions hold that all things in creation are related and each has effects upon the other. Each reservation has a separate tribal government.