Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral.com website (Debra Utacia Krol). Here’s an excerpt:
The Cocopah Tribe and two other Arizona tribal communities are working with new money and tools to address climate change after receiving grants from the U.S. Department of the Interior and several private funders. In 2023, the 1,000-member Cocopah Tribe, whose lands lie along the Colorado River southwest of Yuma, received $5 million from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s America the Beautiful Challenge to support two riparian restoration initiatives. During the four-year project, the tribe will remove invasive species and replant 45,000 native trees, like cottonwood, willow and mesquite to restore 390 acres of the river’s historic floodplain close to the U.S.-Mexico border. The Cocopah Tribe also received $515,000 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bonneville Environmental Foundation for the restoration effort.
“These are places where habitat has been lost over the last century because of damming, rechanneling the river, overuse, and climate change,” said Jen Alspach, director of the Cocopah tribe’s environmental protection office.
The goal of these projects is to restore habitat for native wildlife and migratory birds that depend on the native plants that once prospered in the floodplain, she said…The tribe will recreate and rehabilitate 41 acres along the Colorado River that have become choked with invasive plants. It will also create a youth corps to support the restoration efforts, according to a release from the foundation…Restoring the river bottom is a priority as the tribe reintroduces plants and trees that have disappeared due to low river levels and invasive species, he said.
