Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a noon lecture this month on climate change and its impact on Native cultures.

Lecturer Victoria Wyllie de Echeverria, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oxford, will discuss how climate change is being perceived by indigenous people and how these changes are affecting cultural and biological diversity in the coastal environment of northwestern North America.

Wyllie de Echeverria is doing her research in part as a visiting scholar at SHI. The institute sponsors the program for graduate students enrolled into an accredited educational institution or professors engaged in research that advances knowledge of Tlingit, Haida or Tsimshian culture, language, arts, or history.  

Wyllie de Echeverria received a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. at the University of Victoria, Canada, in plant ecology and taxonomy and ethnobotany, before moving to the University of Oxford to complete a Ph.D in ethnoecology.

The lecture is free but donations for construction of the Walter Soboleff building will be accepted. It’s scheduled for noon, Tuesday, Sept. 16, in the Sealaska boardroom. People are invited to bring their own lunch.

Sealaska Heritage Institute was founded in 1980 to promote cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding. The institute is governed by a Board of Trustees and guided by a Council of Traditional Scholars. Its mission is to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska.

CONTACT: Chuck Smythe, Culture and History Director, 907.586.9282

  climate change, lecture, native culture