Tsosie to speak on ‘Indigenous Peoples and Global Climate Change’

Rebecca TsosieRebecca Tsosie, Executive Director of the Indian Legal Program, will speak next month on “Indigenous Peoples and Global Climate Change: Intercultural Models of Climate Equity” at the Knight Law Center at the University of Oregon School of Law.

The presentation, scheduled for Sept. 11, will frame the issue of “climate equity” within a global context, but focus on the impacts of climate change on indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples have been identified as “vulnerable groups” within the discussions on climate change, and it is projected that many indigenous groups will experience relocation and destruction of their traditional lifeways. This grim reality poses a unique set of challenges for all governments, and also features an opportunity to examine the legal and ethical duties that might arise from these challenges.

Tsosie teaches in the areas of Indian law, Property, Bioethics, and Critical Race Theory, as well as seminars in International Indigenous Rights and in the College’s Tribal Policy, Law, and Government Master of Laws program. She has written and published widely on doctrinal and theoretical issues related to tribal sovereignty, environmental policy and cultural rights, and is the author of many prominent articles dealing with cultural resources and cultural pluralism. Tsosie also is the co-author with Robert Clinton and Carole Goldberg of a federal Indian law casebook. Her current research deals with Native rights to genetic resources.