The Institute for Environmental Professionals featured the Swinomish Tribe’s Climate Change Initiative on its website, crediting the tribe with being “At the Forefront of Planning for Climate Change”:

The Swinomish Tribe has been at the forefront nationally in addressing climate change adaptation. The Swinomish Climate Change Initiative has been highlighted at tribal conferences, national websites, newsletters and other venues as a model for assessing the impacts from climate change and developing a climate change adaptation plan. The Swinomish Tribe secured 80% of project funding ($400,000) from the Administration for Native Americans. The remaining 20% came from Tribal funds.

The model developed by the Swinomish Tribe focuses on building an understanding of climate change impacts in order to identify strategies for climate change adaptation. The Swinomish Tribe began preliminary efforts in 2007 to identify the scope of climate change issues. The Tribe began by gaining buy-in from tribal leaders through the proclamation, and then began to assess capacity and needs internally, as well as opportunity for collaboration with external partners. After defining their approach and methods, the Tribe began work on the Impact Assessment Technical Report, which was completed in 2009. This assessment provides a baseline of information the Tribe is using to develop the climate change adaptation action plan.