Navajo Times, News Report, Posted: Sep 07, 2011

 It's too late for the Navajo Nation to prepare for climate change, the Council's Resource and Development Committee heard here Monday. The best it can hope for is to respond to it.

After hearing reports on the issue from everybody from scientists to grazing officials to peacemakers, the committee's chairperson, Katherine Benally (Chilchinbeto/Dennehotso/ Kayenta), promised action.

"We are legislators and we aim to do that," she told the crowd of about 120 that met at the Many Farms Chapter House to discuss the alarming desertification that has taken place on the Navajo Nation in the last 30 years.

"(Your comments) will not just be put to the wayside. We will pull it all together ... above all our concern is for our Mother Earth," Benally said.

The Council, however, is getting an extremely late start. Margaret Hiza Redsteer, project chief with the U.S. Geological Survey, showed slide after slide of evidence the land has been on a consistent downward slide since at least the mid-1970s.

"The Navajo Nation is in one of the longest droughts in recorded history," she told a sea of grim-faced Central Agency residents sweating in the 90-degree heat. "It's not a simple matter of overgrazing. There are a number of other factors that make it so critical to address this issue."

Before she drew this conclusion, Redsteer had analyzed National Weather Service data, set up monitoring sites on the reservation, and interviewed 73 traditional elders to see if they had witnessed climate change in their lifetimes.

They had. Some remembered the ground being moist until the Fourth of July when they were children.

"I don't think it's been like that for a really long time," Redsteer said.

Climate data, admittedly spotty on the reservation, show a drying trend since 1944 and a warming trend since the mid-1970s. Read more here.