The Environmental Protection Agency is partnering with Northern Arizona University and the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals on a program to manage pesticide use on tribal lands.

The EPA will give $975,000 to NAU and the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals over five years. Ann Marie Chischilly is the institute's executive director. She said the funding will help educate Native communities about safe pesticide use and protect resources on reservations.

“A lot of us as Native people, we collect all of our medicines or we collect all of our food from our lands around us, so really monitoring and having a way to work with those issues is what this pesticide council looks at," Chischilly said. 

The funding will support the Tribal Pesticide Program Council, which works with more than 30 tribes in Arizona and across the U.S.