Feds Offer $8 Million To Help Alaska Natives Address Climate Change

"WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of the Interior is directing $8 million to helping Native American communities address the effects of climate change.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced the funding on Tuesday while in Alaska, where she is visiting Kivalina, one of the Native villages that has been seeking to move because sea level rise and coastal erosion threaten their long-term safety.

Native communities can apply for the pool of funds, known as the Tribal Climate Resilience Program, to help cover climate change adaptation, as well as ocean and coastal management planning. This builds on $2.3 million that Interior had set aside for tribal climate resilience last year, the agency said in an announcement."

Kate Sheppard reports for the Huffington Post February 17, 2015.