Session 8. 3. B.

Can our global community really thrive in -- and when it comes right down to it, do we really want to live in -- a world where love and care have been delegitimized and dominated by other forces? This question is reflective of a struggle alive and well in predominant colonial and capitalist cultures which have relegated love and care to the domain of personal relationships and invalidated it as a credible consideration in political, economic, scientific, and business decision making. It has been effectively cost-benefited out of the equation.

The diminished presence of love and care has contributed to environmental and social injustice for centuries and more recently to injustice and maladaptation in the face of climate change. For climate adaptation strategies to avoid maladaptation and to work instead toward a more just, equitable, and sustainable future for all, love and care must play a vital and credible role in HOW we work together to respond to climate change.

This presentation will share a framework for transformative adaptation to climate change with love and care as a strategy to push open the constraints of colonial and capitalist systems and structures. It will discuss how a co-learning partnership of Indigenous and Indigenous-serving partners with long-term, meaningful relationships wove together an infrastructure of love and care, a commons, to co-create Indigenous and local, place-based community climate indicators and metrics and share in solidarity climate adaptation strategies. This presentation will discuss how this group of partners nurtured an infrastructure of love and care and the challenges and opportunities in continuing to grow, together. The presentation will also weave in additional relevant partner experiences.

Kīpuka Kuleana, a Native Hawaiian women-led community-based land trust, revitalizes relationships between people and ʻāina (lands and waters) to perpetuate cultural practices that build climate resilience in Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi. Ancestral land protection is foundational to climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts on Kauaʻi, an isolated rural island in the Pacific Ocean increasingly vulnerable to flooding and landslides, sea level rise, and other climate-related impacts. Kīpuka Kuleana strives to keep kupa ʻāina ʻohana (long-time families)—the anchors of community who care for, teach from, and maintain balance in their fragile environments—rooted to their homes amidst increasing gentrification, land dispossession, and climate-related disasters. Through our interwoven programs, we return lands to communities and communities to lands, a reciprocal process known as ʻāina hoʻi, to restore access to ʻāina for collective caretaking, place-based education, and spiritual rejuvenation. Our land trust partners with Indigenous and allied groups in Hawaiʻi, Louisiana, California and Borikén (Puerto Rico) to share learnings tied to land protection, disaster resilience, adaptation, and rematriation, or the restoration of relationships between Indigenous people and ancestral lands. Our efforts illuminate how Indigenous-led community-based land trusts and stewardship efforts forge new possibilities for adapting in place and cultivating more connected, resilient ecosystems stewarded under Indigenous leadership, in alignment with the “Land Back” movement.

Extreme weather events have demonstrated that there is a mismatch between available climate data and metrics (reflecting on-the-ground lived realities) that communities can use to inform community climate adaptation. A similar mismatch occurs in disaster health responses. Healthcare systems use hazard vulnerability analyses (HVA) to identify hazards such as climate disasters, evaluate their potential impact, and guide resource allocation. HVAs rely primarily on US census data to understand community resiliency. This lack of inclusivity and disregard for local and Indigenous knowledge in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery undermines local capacity, slows the recovery process, and exacerbates health inequities. However, even when transformational ideas and Indigenous leaders are present, bureaucratic systems may not respond to community recommendations and requests. Given the lack of accountability that Indigenous and local communities have experienced with disaster response, it is critical that the centering of local and Indigenous knowledge in climate disaster health response must be done by ensuring non-discrimination, participation, accountability, and transparency in healthcare design. A rights-based approach, reflecting these core principles, provides a means for climate HVAs to center local and Indigenous knowledges and advance better health provisioning in climate disasters. A rights-based approach to health ensures that principles of fairness, participation and accountability are applied in disaster response and extends to the provision of the underlying determinants of health (food, safe water, housing, land). The AAAQ framework—comprising Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability, and Quality—a crucial element of a rights-based approach - ensures that health goods and services are available, accessible (including economic affordability, physical and information accessibility) culturally appropriate, and of high quality. A rights-based approach addresses the inequalities, discriminatory practices, and unjust distributions of power that often prevent Indigenous leadership in decision-making climate and health protection. A rights-based approach, however, requires concrete context-specific metrics to ensure effective implementation and monitoring. We propose that a rights-based approach can be used to create usable Indigenous-led metrics and bridge knowledge rifts currently preventing effective partnerships between Indigenous communities and health care institutions for climate disaster response.

Indigenous communities in Coastal Louisiana have long been connected to similarly situated communities in other sacrifice zones, such as within Alaska. These co-learning networks, include partners in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, California, and many other spaces. Communal ownership is one resilience strategy that has been considered by communities in Coastal Louisiana. This case study will describe a collaboration across geographies and the lessons learned from visiting.

This presentation explores how to build equitable, long-term partnerships between academic researchers and community organizations. It will be co-led by a practitioner with over a decade of experience working for water justice and conservation organizations in underserved regions of the United States and a university professor with deep expertise in community-based research and advocacy in Hawaiʻi.

Drawing on ethical research guidelines for working with communities, we will discuss how principles of cultural respect, community leadership, and the integration of local knowledge are essential for successful, community-driven research. Through real-world examples, we will highlight the dos and don’ts at each stage of the research process—from project design to sharing results. We will address challenges such as power imbalances and communication breakdowns, and offer practical strategies for overcoming these obstacles.

Key to successful research partnerships is equitable compensation for community partners, including the opportunity to serve as co-principal investigators. We will also discuss strategies for fostering respect and valuing community expertise throughout the research process.

This presentation provides actionable insights for building sustainable, mutually beneficial research partnerships that honor community organizations, while bridging the gap between academia and the communities most impacted by environmental and social challenges.