Tai Kondo Koester

I am a Masters student in the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona working with Dr. Andrew Curley. My research draws from political ecology and Indigenous geographies to study environmental politics in the US West and examines how the energy transition is shaping the political and economic futures of tribal nations. My Masters research is focused on the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, a federally-recognized tribe, whose reservation is located in southeastern Montana. This is coal country, part of the Powder River Basin, the most productive coalfields in the US. The Northern Cheyenne Reservation is surrounded by large coal strip mines on three sides and is 20 miles from the Colstrip Generating Station, once one of the largest coal-fired power stations in the US. In this remote region, coal extraction represents a reliable source of income for tribal members. However, coal’s future is uncertain, and the Colstrip Generating Station has closed half of its units that produce electricity. Against this backdrop, the Tribe is exploring options for developing its own trib-ally-owned utility based on renewable energy production, which has the potential to reduce the Tribe’s depend-ence on external electricity providers and could employ tribal members.

Before coming to the U of A, I completed my undergraduate education in Geography and Evolutionary Biology & Ecology at the University of Colorado Boulder. There, I completed my honors thesis on the role of US public lands and historical mapping in the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, which together have gone on to shape the terrain upon which present-day Indigenous campaigns to protect the Bears Ears region must struggle.

Previously, I also worked for two and half years at Northern Plains Resource Council, a grassroots conservation and family agriculture organization based in Billings, Montana. In this role I managed the Good Neighbor Agreement, a contract between Northern Plains and a multinational mining corporation, Sibanye-Stillwater, which extracts platinum and palladium ore from the Beartooth Mountains for use in catalytic converters. The Agreement gives local communities oversight of mine operations and implements a robust Adaptive Management Plan for monitoring water quality.

Beyond my academic pursuits, I’m a diehard backcountry skier and mountain biker. When I’m not doing academic work, you can find me in the mountains (preferably with snow) or on a trail somewhere!

Publications:
Koester, Tai Kondo and Bryan, Joe. 2022. “The cartographic dispossession of Bears Ears: Confronting settler colonialism in contemporary struggles over ‘public land’”, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 5(4), 2332– 2355. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486211045358.