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Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI) supports CMOP in its engagement of the Native American community

06/24/08 Portland, Ore. ATNIRead the resolution document (pdf)The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI) gave formal support to Center for the Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction (CMOP) in its engagement of the Native American community at their May conference.

ATNI is a nonprofit organization representing 54 Northwest tribal governments from Oregon, Idaho, Washington, southeast Alaska, Northern California and Western Montana. The member tribes set the policy and direction in three yearly meetings.

On May 15, 2008, the ATNI held their mid year conference in Grand Mound, Washington. The CMOP resolution was presented to the Natural Resources Committee chaired by Alfred Nomee and the Education Committee chaired by Patsy Whitefoot. The resolution passed by majority vote through both committees. It then was sent to the floor for all delegates to review and passed by majority vote.

The resolution recognizes CMOP's continued commitment to address the interests of Native Americans in its program activities across K-12 education, higher education, scientific research, natural resource management and community economic development.

Vanessa Green, CMOP Director of Higher Education and Diversity, attended the conference. "We are honored to receive ATNI's endorsement in continuing our work with Pacific Northwest Native American communities and look forward to supporting students towards interdisciplinary education in science and math," says Green.

The resolution encourages CMOP to continue its active engagement of tribal members, governments and organizations in the Pacific Northwest for the purpose of better understanding and reflecting Native American interests and indigenous ways of knowing.

Shana Radford (Nez Perce/Cayuse) is a tribal member who is helping CMOP communicate tribal information. Radford is a political science senior at Portland State University and participating in the undergraduate internship program. Radford is developing a web portal incorporating tribal information and their relation to the river to ocean system. Radford says she wants to "help give CMOP a tool to expand Native American representation and at the same time invest in my own education about salmon habitat and restoration."

"As a future tribal leader, I see this not only as an investment for me but my community and the Pacific Northwest," says Radford.