It was never a matter of if, but when<\/strong>.\r\n<\/P>\r\nThat\u2019s what we said, year after year, defeat after defeat, as Tribal Nations in Washington State tried again and again and again to pass the comprehensive, aggressive climate change legislation.
<\/P>\r\nNo matter how each legislative or electoral battle went, we all knew this was not a war we could lose. Surrender would never be an option. Science told us clearly the policies that were absolutely necessary to enact to ensure the survival of our state\u2019s ecosystems and the communities they sustain.
<\/P>\r\nFor years we worked on behalf of the Quinault Nation, as the ancestral coastal rainforest villages of Taholah and Queets on the Pacific Coast faced increasing flooding from sea level rise \u2013 and Quinault was only one of a half-dozen Tribes facing urgent crises from sea level rise across the state.
<\/P>\r\nWe had to keep trying until we developed the strategy that succeeded in confronting the existential crisis of our generation, and generations to come, and provided the enormous resources needed for those Tribal Nations to safely and urgently relocate their villages further upland.\r\n
<\/P>\r\nIt\u2019s not a matter of if, but when<\/strong>.\r\n<\/P>\r\nThat\u2019s also what we said when every elected official in the state said that Tribes would never get guaranteed funding parity worth billions of dollars into law. While the entire country suffers a \u201cQuiet Crisis\u201d of systematic underfunding of Tribes at every level, we were dreamers to ever imagine that we could hardwire funding equity into law in Washington State, finally guaranteeing a level playing field after generations of systematic resource deprivation.\r\n
<\/P>\r\nIt\u2019s not a matter of if, but when<\/strong>.\r\n<\/P>\r\n
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