Meyer Memorial Trust Awards $5.3 Million in Environmental Grants

The Meyer Memorial Trust in Portland, Oregon, has announced fifty-five grants totaling more than $5.3 million in support of organizations advancing solutions in the areas of climate change, climate justice, clean air, watershed health, land and forest conservation, and green workforce development. Through the foundation's Healthy Environment portfolio, several grants were awarded to Native American tribes and Native-led organizations working to elevate and integrate indigenous knowledge and practices into conservation and environmental protection efforts across the state. Recipients include the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, which was awarded $185,000 in support of a natural lands conservation plan that integrates the Tribes' cultural and healthy traditions goals, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, which will receive a grant of $176,037 in support of efforts to improve air quality and mitigate health impacts related to prescribed wildfire management burns. In addition, a grant of $249,850 was awarded to five tribal communities — the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, and the Nez Perce Tribe — to study and assess the loss of natural resource services of importance to their tribal governments and members as a result of contamination in Portland Harbor and integrate that information into watershed and habitat restoration in the lower Willamette Valley.