Cocopah Tribe: habitat restoration along the Colorado River to address climate change

Map: Tribe will restore areas along the Colorado River to address climate change. The Cocopah Tribe will work on riparian areas with money from several federal sources and private funders.

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.

…a great step for us to continue our vision of returning it to the way it used to be.

Cocopah Museum Director Joe Rodriquez

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.

“Having the funding to make changes to our tribal lands is a great step for us to continue our vision of returning it to the way it used to be,” said Cocopah Museum Director Joe Rodriquez.

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.

The grant is expected to generate at least $12 million in matching donations.

The Cocopah grant was one of 74 large-scale conservation programs supported by the foundation.

BIA awards $1.45 million to Cocopah, Pascua Yaqui and White Mountain Apache tribes

Cocopah was awarded $1.05 million for a 390-acre restoration project, called the “Cocopah West Limitrophe Restoration Project,” and $152,000 to build a climate change resiliency program. The Interior Department announced the funding last week.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is overseen by Interior, made the awards from its tribal climate resilience program. The funding came from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Laws, the Inflation Reduction Act and federal appropriations to the agency.

The other project involves creating additional aquatic and wetland habitats along […]

Full article: www.azcentral.com