Across the globe indigenous communities are at the highest risk of effects from climate change. Their traditional practices rely on ancestral lands that are vulnerable to rising tides, droughts, and extreme weather. Loss of ancestral lands endangers traditional knowledge and indigenous culture that have shaped these communities for thousands of years.
Threats from Climate Change
Recession of glaciers
Rising sea levels
Warming ocean temperatures
Increasing heat waves
Droughts
Annual temperatures.
Native flora and fauna vulnerability
Land fragmentation
Increase in invasive species
Complex Relationships Between Indigenous Communities and the Environment
Indigenous peoples are a community of people sharing inter-generational ancestry (United Nations declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). Globally, indigenous culture is uniquely influenced by their ancestral lands with over 4,000 languages and generations of knowledge. Social identity is linked to bonds with the environment from experiences hunting, foraging, fishing, resource management, aquaculture, small scale farming, sacred ceremonies, and storytelling. With the endangerment and extinction of species, land erosion, and displacement, these bonds are weakened generationally. Native livelihood around physical, spiritual, and mental well-being is rooted in their harvests and connection to the natural environment. In the arctic, these assets are especially sensitive to environmental shifts; Alaska is at the forefront of climate change and has been warming up to four times faster than in lower North American latitudes since the 1950’s (Chang and Bliss, 2023).
Challenges in Alaskan Natives Communities
Hunting, fishing, and whaling is more dangerous to travel on with less available sea and lake ice, forests are dying, caribou herds are stressed from limited food, shellfish poisoning is increasing, salmon runs are decreasing, and invasive species are encroaching on native flora an fauna populations. Communities in the Chugahmiut region are dependent on marine ecosystems for their subsistence which are exposed to increased acidity, higher temperatures, and invasive species. Salmon are a critical food source for natives and their populations are less plentiful, traditional practices are diluted between generations, and the Chugachmiut tribes are faced with greater food insecurity. (Morton, Shew, Hetrick, and Carl, 2017). Alaskan Natives are already more exposed to food insecurity due to colonization. With hunting restrictions, environmental degradation, high import prices in grocery stores, there is less access to nutritious foods and an increase in diabetes, obesity, mental-illnesses, disordered eating, and decline in healthy livelihoods. (Stotz, Herbert, Maddux, and Moore, 2022).
Colonization of Alaska and the Exxon Oil Spill
The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) extinguished aboriginal land claims.
Alaska is divided into 12 districts that handle funding and land rights in exchange of state recognition and rights. Essentially, this allowed the state to relocate native Americans and claim access to build the pipeline and access oil. In 1974 Exxon spilled 10 million U.S gallons in Valdez which was catastrophic to the natural environment, desolated food supplies, and permanently caused ecological damage. Fishing and coastal foraging took a significant disaster. Taking over 10 years to clean up, traces of the oil are still present and permanent damage has been made. The Sugpiaq people of this area have struggled to recover and community culture was lost. Once ceremonies, traditions, and knowledge is lost it cannot be recovered; it is considered inappropriate for neighboring tribes to replace or substitute it. Climate change accentuates this suffrage of the Chugachmiut livelihood as these communities are at an even higher risk from the set backs and threats that have already devastated their culture and ancestral lands.
To best research how anthropogenic environmental damage is influencing Chugachmiut communities and their preservation of culture, Ostrom's Socio-Ecological-Systems Theory is an advantageous framework. This approach analyzes the correlation between environmental and social issues, specifically, assessing social-ecological dimensions and how they are influenced by resource management (Delgado-Serrano, M. del M. and Ramos, 2015). This framework is composed of six constructs: resource systems, resource units, governance systems, users, interactions, and outcomes. Ostrom's approach defines the boundaries of specific resources and environmental systems, analyzes governing bodies with the most influecne on its management, and how these bodies interact with the communties that depend on these resoruces and environmental systems.
The arctic experiences the effects of climate change disproportionally from rapid environmental changes; these threats encroach on their livelihood and influence a tribe’s ability to pass their culture on to the next generation which has been shared for 10 millennia.
These threats encroach on their livelihood and influence a tribe’s ability to pass their culture on to the next generation which has been shared for 10 millennia. In South central Alaska, the Kenai Peninsula and Prince William Sound make up the Chugach region and the Chugachmiut people have evolved closely with aquatic and terrestial ecosystems leaving them more vulnerable to shifts and changes in the environment.
Traditional ecological knowledge is an expertise of the relationships between environmental biotic and abiotic factors. It is a wisdom of the way of life, passing down of experiences, spiritual health, language, and sets a governing use of resources. TEK compliments western science and with the decline of credibility within indigenous communities we lose the opportunity to integrate these expertises to conserve biodiversity, natural resources, and holistic livelihoods.
References
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Hand, J. P. (2008). Global Climate Change: A Serious Threat to Native American Lands and Culture. Environmental Law Reporter News & Analysis, 38(Issue 5), 10329–10337.
Cordalis, D., & Suagee, D. B. (2008). The effects of climate change on American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. Natural Resources & Environment, 22(3), 45-49.
Ford, J. D., King, N., Galappaththi, E. K., Pearce, T., McDowell, G., & Harper, S. L. (2020). The resilience of indigenous peoples to environmental change. One Earth, 2(6), 532-543.
Hand, J. P. (2008). Global climate change: A serious threat to native American lands and culture. Envtl. L. Rep. News & Analysis, 38, 10329.
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Stotz, S. A., Hebert, L. E., Scarton, L., Begay, K., Gonzales, K., Garrow, H., ... & Charron-Prochownik, D. (2024). Relationship Between Food Insecurity and Healthy Eating Behavior for Gestational Diabetes Risk Reduction Among American Indian and Alaska Native Adolescent and Young Adult Females: A Qualitative Exploration. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 56(9), 622-630.