BY: ANGELORA CASTELLANO
Angelora is a first-year MAIR student concentrating in Tech and Innovation and the United States. She hopes to continue her work in public service and work at the Department of State focusing on Public Diplomacy and US governmental incorporation of AI and emerging technologies.
Introduction
When it comes to climate change, indigenous groups are often the most vulnerable and susceptible to its devastating impacts. The communities located in the circumpolar north are especially affected, where the impacts of climate change are anticipated to be amplified compared to other regions. Due to the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the global north is warming at around two times the global average rate, resulting in drastic changes in the Arctic environment such as increased glacial and ice melting, rising sea levels, and rising permafrost temperatures.1 This loss of a stable environment disproportionately impacts indigenous communities due to their traditional relationship with subsistence survival, which is a system that is dependent on climate-change-sensitive resources.2 However, the ecological knowledge required to maintain a self-sustaining system allows indigenous groups to be highly adaptive to environmental changes. This knowledge is preserved through the oral traditions of the native groups in the circumpolar north, which have recorded historical instances of drastic changes to the environment of their ancestors as well as copious amounts of information regarding their environment and their survival strategies. Oral traditions of the global north that make up the indigenous knowledge of these communities can be utilized by scientists to analyze how human adaptation can help mitigate the impact of climate change, as well as the importance of including indigenous expertise in scientific debates about climate change. In this way, centering oral traditions play an integral role in implementing a ‘just transition’, ensuring the fight for climate mitigation is inclusive of indigenous realities.
The Global North
The Circumpolar North, commonly known as the Arctic Circle, is the northern Arctic latitudes encompassing parts of the Arctic Ocean and the northern lands of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia.3 This region is intensely impacted by climate change and is anticipated to increase its average winter temperature by 4-8°C, with places like Siberia being considered “hot spots” due to the permafrost that is melting and further contributing to the warming by releasing methane gas.4 . Climate change not only affects the natural resources, like oil, gas, and fish, that the global north provides to the rest of the world, but it also contributes to the rise in the global sea level due to the melting of Arctic glaciers.5 Such drastic environmental changes to the global north could result in the relocation of humans, animals, and plants from their local landscapes, resulting in the loss of traditional practices associated with their ancestral land and demonstrating the cultural implications of climate change in the Arctic.6
One of the traditional practices that would be lost to climate change is the oral traditions of the global north. These oral stories often depict the social nature of the relationship between humans and nonhumans, especially landscape features such as glaciers.7 These oral traditions depicting the glaciers recall the period of the Little Ice Age that occurred from around “roughly 1550-1850, [and] was characterized by lower temperatures over much of the globe, with significant consequences for climate at high latitudes”.10 The stories hold the knowledge and experience of the Arctic indigenous ancestors, who directly interacted with the impact of intense change to their environment, and recall the “18th-century clan migrations involving glacier travel ... accounts from the 19th century about extremely cold summers and catastrophic consequences of surging glaciers, and 20th-century observations about changes in flora and fauna”.11 These are important cultural stories for these indigenous communities that also hold important information regarding how adaptation can help mitigate the impact of intense climate variability. By having access to the indigenous knowledge of how their ancestors were able to adapt to historical environmental changes to preserve their subsistence culture, scientists are better able to devise strategies for mitigating the impact of climate change.
Utilizing Indigenous Knowledge
The sentient characterization of glaciers by Tlingit's oral stories conflicts with geophysical scientists’ accounts. Arctic indigenous traditions describe glaciers with sight and smell, observing how they responded to human behaviors and recklessness. This is a different depiction than the one provided by earth scientists who describe glacier field sites as places where scientists are able to identify specific moments where they can simplify complex aspects of climate change, making it easier to understand.12 However, despite these narratives' initial differences, there has been a recent movement within scientific climate change research to incorporate indigenous knowledge into their assessment of the impact of climate change and adaptation efforts.13 This indigenous knowledge is formally known as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). It is “a cumulative body of knowledge, practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and with their environment”.14 TEK is essential to the survival of indigenous communities, and is instrumental towards research for inclusive climate change adaptation strategies.
TEK is gradually gathered over generations by communities whose survival is dependent on this information and is passed down to future generations orally or through shared traditions.15 TEK can be used to develop adaptation strategies for environmental changes and can interact and collaborate with scientific research as a “local-scale expertise, as a source of climate history and baseline data, in formulating research questions and hypotheses, as insight into impacts and adaptation in communities, [and] for long-term community-based monitoring”.16 Indigenous communities in the global north have already been utilizing TEK to formulate their adaptation strategies to the impacts of climate change. One way these vulnerable groups utilize indigenous knowledge is with the traditional proficiency “of the seasonal timing of growth, development, reproduction, and migration of organisms, which generally occurs in a predictable sequence based on temperature thresholds, length of daylight, moisture or other environmental determinants''.17 This utilization of TEK when it comes to the weather allows for these indigenous groups to utilize short term adaptation skills such as “modifying the timing and location of harvest activity, adjusting the mix of species harvested, and monitoring for dangerous environmental conditions”.18 Subsistence-based indigenous groups in the Arctic can mitigate the impact of climate change by utilizing their TEK regarding seasonal weather patterns to ensure survival despite weather and temperature fluctuations.
Another instance of utilizing indigenous knowledge to mitigate the impact of climate change in the global north is when the Inuit hunters draw upon their TEK to maximize their hunting opportunities while also minimizing risk.19 Inuit hunting knowledge is passed down through generations by shared actions and the oral education that teaches “the inherent dangers of hunting; how to evaluate risks; what preparations to make before hunting; and what to do in emergency situations,”20 which allows for indigenous hunters to adapt easily to environmental changes to hunt when and where an opportunity is presented. In addition, the Inuit TEK regarding certain resources and their anticipated seasons allows hunters to anticipate when buck hunting season will begin because of their traditional oral education regarding “species' life cycles in relation to environmental cues [which] is important for survival; [because] it allows people to accommodate year-by-year variations in seasonal cycles.”21 Inuit hunters’ expansive indigenous hunting knowledge allows them to adapt to the changes in species availability and access by adjusting their hunting times to continue traditional practices, despite “observed and anticipated changes in climatic and environmental conditions”.22
Recently many indigenous-centered organizations have begun digitizing and preserving Arctic TEK. The Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) is an international NGO representing over 180,000 Inuit people and launched the groundbreaking ICC Canada Archive which “aims to preserve and promote Inuit knowledge, participation, advocacy, and leadership.”23 The archive includes a variety of text, photos, and videos that formally preserve Inuit TEK in a format that allows for the knowledge to be disseminated and dispersed easily among practitioners and around the world. Arctic indigenous organizations, like the ICC, are supported by the Arctic Council Secretariat, “the leading intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination, and interaction among the Arctic States, Arctic Indigenous Peoples, and other Arctic inhabitants”.24 The Arctic Council actively advocates on behalf of indigenous groups to protect the Arctic region against the impacts of climate change, as well as preserving and promoting TEK as a tool for sustainable climate change strategies
Importance of Indigenous Expertise
When researching different adaptation solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change, it is important to not only include the traditional ecological knowledge of the native community but also ensure that indigenous expertise is consulted and utilized. Many Arctic indigenous societies have an alternative perspective of their environment and “commonly regard other species – and even physical features like mountains and rivers – as having spirits of their own, as beings in their own right, having their own societies and relationships, and their own powers that can aid us, or cause problems for us according to how well we respect and treat them.”25 This relationship between the people and the environment depicted in oral traditions shows the collective responsibility for the changes in the world that comes from the traditional conceptualization of social relations between humans and nonhumans.26 By viewing the physical landscape as a community of sentient beings that interact with human behavior, indigenous communities place a cultural emphasis on preserving their environment. Including indigenous experts in scientific research to mitigate the impact of climate change allows for the inclusion of the perspective that it is humanity's collective responsibility to address problems caused by human-driven climate change.
It is also important to include indigenous expertise in researching adaptation strategies for the environmental impact of climate change, because these experts are direct users of the resources being affected. Resource management strategies devised by technical experts, from a central bureaucracy, often result in the loss of resilience of the environment and decreased variability due to the emphasis on steady states and maximum sustainable yield.27 In direct contrast, indigenous resource management methods emphasize the fundamental importance of sustainable living and creating a resilient environment that can absorb disruptions and restructure to the impacts of climate change.28 Utilizing indigenous knowledge to cope with the impact of climate change and to understand the quantitative changes made to the complex landscape system, establishes environmental resilience to improve a community’s chances of survival.29
Integrating the knowledge of indigenous experts who utilize climate change-sensitive resources allows scientific research to focus on resource management skills that promote sustainability, resulting in adaptation strategies that prioritize the preservation of the indigenous landscape and encourage environmental resilience.
Conclusion
The indigenous communities of the global north have amassed a tremendous amount of traditional ecological knowledge within their oral traditions. This knowledge allows for indigenous communities to “be adaptive and resilient to change and offers a way of knowing that could be conducive to understanding impacts from climate change and strategies for climate adaptation.”30 By including indigenous expertise within scientific research on mitigating the impact of climate change, there is a direct integration of traditional knowledge into the creation of adaptation strategies, ensuring more just and inclusive solutions. Arctic TEK includes traditional practices of self-sustaining systems that allow indigenous communities to be highly adaptable, as well as historical accounts of past environmental changes that give insight into methods of adapting to the volatile shifts in the circumpolar landscape. Due to the emphasis on adaptation strategies that promote sustainability and resilience within traditional resource management, indigenous expertise can provide methods of mitigating the impacts of climate change that allow for adjustments because of the unpredictability associated with climate variability. Indigenous oral traditions depict a wide variety of ancestral experiences, mythologized beings, and cultural expectations that contain vital information for adapting to the turbulent impacts of climate change.
1. Arctic Climate Change and Its Impacts, (Ambio 33, no. 7, 2004).
2. Susan A. Crate, Gone the Bull of Winter?: Grappling with the Cultural Implications of and Anthropology’s Role(s) in Global Climate Change, (Current Anthropology 49, no. 4, 2008), 571–72.
3. Crate, Gone the Bull of Winter?, 571–72.
4. Julie Cruikshank, Glaciers and Climate Change: Perspectives from Oral Tradition, (Arctic 54, no. 4, 2001), 377–78.
5. Arctic Climate Change and Its Impacts, Ambio.
6. Crate, Gone the Bull of Winter?, 573.
7. Cruikshank, Glaciers and Climate Change, 382.
8. Cruikshank, Glaciers and Climate Change, 378.
9. Thomas Heyd and Nick Brooks, Exploring Cultural Dimensions of Adaptation to Climate Change: Insights for Living with Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 271.
10. Cruikshank, Glaciers and Climate Change, 378.
11. Cruikshank, Glaciers and Climate Change, 378.
12. Julie Cruikshank, Do Glaciers Listen?: Local Knowledge Colonial Encounters and Social Imagination, (Vancouver Seattle: UBC Press; University of Washington Press, 2005), 47.
13. Kirsten Vinyeta and Kathy Lynn, Exploring the Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Climate Change Initiatives, (United States Department of Agriculture, 2013), 1-3.
14. Fikret Berkes, Johan Colding, and Carl Folke, Rediscovery of Traditional Ecological Knowledge as Adaptive Management, (Ecological Applications 10, no. 5, 2000), 1252.
15. Berkes, Colding, and Folke, Rediscovery of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, 1252.
16. Vinyeta and Lynn, Exploring the Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, 8.
17. Nancy J. Turner and Helen Clifton, “It's so Different Today”: Climate Change and Indigenous Lifeways in British Columbia, Canada, (Global Environmental Change 19, no. 2, 2009), 183.
18. Vinyeta and Lynn, Exploring the Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, 10.
19. James Ford et al., Climate Change in the Arctic: Current and Future Vulnerability in Two Inuit Communities in Canada, (The Geographical Journal 174, no. 1, 2008), 53.
20. Ford et al., Climate Change in the Arctic, 53.
21. Turner and Clifton, “It's so Different Today”,185.
22. Ford et al., Climate Change in the Arctic, 52.
23. Cassandra Elliott, Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) Launches Groundbreaking Archive to Preserve and Share Inuit Knowledge, (Inuit Circumpolar Council, 2024).
24. About the Arctic Council, (Arctic Council Secretariat, 2024).
25. Turner and Clifton, “It's so Different Today”,186.
26. Heyd and Brooks, Exploring Cultural Dimensions of Adaptation, 271–72.
27. Berkes, Colding, and Folke, Rediscovery of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, 1259.
28. Vinyeta and Lynn, Exploring the Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, 3-6.
29. Berkes, Colding, and Folke, Rediscovery of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, 1260.
30. Vinyeta and Lynn, Exploring the Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, 9.
Bibliography:
“About the Arctic Council.”Arctic Council Secretariat. Accessed April 18, 2024. https://arctic-council.org/about/.
“Arctic Climate Change and Its Impacts.” Ambio 33, no. 7 (2004). http://www.jstor.org/stable/4315530.
Berkes, Fikret, Johan Colding, and Carl Folke. “Rediscovery of Traditional Ecological Knowledge as Adaptive Management.” Ecological Applications 10, no. 5 (2000): 1251–62. https://doi.org/10.2307/2641280.
Crate, Susan A. “Gone the Bull of Winter?: Grappling with the Cultural Implications of and Anthropology’s Role(s) in Global Climate Change.” Current Anthropology 49, no. 4 (2008): 569–95. https://doi.org/10.1086/529543.
Cruikshank Julie. 2005. Do Glaciers Listen? : Local Knowledge Colonial Encounters and Social Imagination. Vancouver Seattle: UBC Press ; University of Washington Press.
Cruikshank, Julie. “Glaciers and Climate Change: Perspectives from Oral Tradition.” Arctic 54, no. 4 (2001): 377–93. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40512394.
Elliott, Cassandra. 2024. “Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) Launches Groundbreaking Archive to Preserve and Share Inuit Knowledge.” Inuit Circumpolar Council. https://www.inuitcircumpolar.com/press-releases/inuit-circumpolar-council-icc-launches-groundbreaking-archive-to-preserve-and-share-inuit-knowledge/.
Ford, James D., Barry Smit, Johanna Wandel, Mishak Allurut, Kik Shappa, Harry Ittusarjuat, and Kevin Qrunnut. “Climate Change in the Arctic: Current and Future Vulnerability in Two Inuit Communities in Canada.” The Geographical Journal 174, no. 1 (2008): 45–62. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30139404.
Heyd, Thomas, and Nick Brooks. “Exploring Cultural Dimensions of Adaptation to Climate Change: Insights for Living with Climate Change.” Chapter. In Adapting to Climate Change: Thresholds, Values, Governance, edited by W. Neil Adger, Irene Lorenzoni, and Karen L. O’Brien, 269–82. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Turner, Nancy J., and Helen Clifton. “It's so different today”: Climate change and indigenous lifeways in British Columbia, Canada.” Edited by Jan Salik and Nancy Ross. Global Environmental Change 19, no. 2 (2009): 180-190.
Vinyeta, Kirsten, and Kathy Lynn.“Exploring the Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Climate Change Initiatives.” United States Department of Agriculture, (2013).
Photo: “Sámi near Innset, northern Norway,” Simone Weicher (part of 2021 Photo Contest)