Keywords

What Is the Impact?

Climate change is occurring across the world and responding to it is increasingly urgent (IPCC, 2021). Indigenous peoples are affected by climate change, often disproportionately so, especially given many peoples still rely on and maintain close relationships with their territories. Across the Arctic, the Amazon, the Himalayas and Africa’s deserts, Indigenous peoples face huge challenges as they cope with the amplified impacts of vegetation and biodiversity loss, fire, flood, desertification and warming all of which have changed natural and cultural landscapes in unprecedented ways. As diverse as Indigenous peoples, climate impacts occur at multiple levels and scales. In this chapter we explore what these impacts look like, and highlight how differentiated they are at various scales.

Perhaps the most major impact of climate change on Indigenous peoples is the way in which it disrupts traditional knowledge systems which are often based on ecological connections, and tied to place. When those places in turn, change, then the knowledge tied to it faces fracture. Seasonal changes, caused by climate change disrupt Indigenous understandings of how things work, especially when they include changes to the ecological and cultural cues that have historically guided when to undertaking harvesting and/or other cultural traditions. As Kyle (2020) notes

Climate variations can disrupt the systems of responsibilities [that] community members self-consciously rely on for living lives closely connected to the earth and many living, non-living and spiritual beings, like animal species and sacred spaces, and interconnected collectives like forest and water systems (Whyte, 2020, 600).

For example, in North Queensland, Australia, for the Kuku Yalanji people, when the wattle was in flower, they knew the coral trout would be available for harvest. However, with climate change, the wattles now flower at different times. This is an example of how fundamental climate changes affect the ecological and seasonal cues that are at the foundation of Indigenous knowledge systems, which in this case have offered guidance about when to hunt and care for the reef and rainforest CountryFootnote 1 of the Kuku Yalanji for millennia (Photo 2.1).

Photo 2.1
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Wattle in flower tells Indigenous groups what times various fish species are running. (Credit: Melissa Nursey-Bray)

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The Indigenous people in Lachen Valley, North Sikkim in the Himalayas have also observed altered phenologyFootnote 2 and range shifts in numerous species (Ingty & Bawa, 2012). Some plant species have been found at lower altitudes that were hitherto found at higher altitudes. In other cases, mosquitos have been observed in the higher altitudes due to warming temperatures (Ingty & Bawa, 2012).

Changes to water regimes are also being observed worldwide: for the Apinaje Indigenous people of the Bico do Papagaio region in the Amazon, the drying of the Amazon means that the rain which used to arrive non-stop from January to June, now comes later, and has affected corn and other plantings. The melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas, not only disrupts Indigenous peoples’ access to water as snow cover shrinks - but causes floods. In the hills of Zhonzhuang village in northwest China, climate related water insecurity has caused crop losses, and intensified poverty.

Indigenous agricultural and livelihood practices are being disrupted worldwide. In the Kaduna state of Nigeria climate change is perceived to be responsible for various forms of crop infestations which have reduced both the quality and quantity of the crop yield of local peoples (Ishaya & Abaje, 2008). In Pakistan, centuries of nomadic pastoralism are being challenged as they now have to depend on ad hoc market and cash interactions during seasonal migrations (Xu & Grumbine, 2014). Deforestation and forest fragmentation also affect Indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon, with fires leading to the creation of savannah lands, further disrupting local knowledge and harvesting practices. Nepalese farmers are experiencing changes to indigenous cropping systems, and have started to import new seed varieties, and create protected areas in and around their forest to protect biodiversity (Xu & Grumbine, 2014). In China, the Lisu people, who live in the southwest mountainous areas of the Yunnan province, and are known for their skills in collecting honey from hives on towering cliffs, are finding fewer hives as bee populations decline due to climate change.

Cattle and other forms of herding are being compromised: in Africa, a combination of increased wind, vegetation loss, dune expansion and higher temperatures is affecting cattle and goat farming for the Indigenous peoples within the Kalahari Basin. Throughout Scandinavia, Sami reindeer herders are finding that rain and warmer weather is inhibiting reindeer from finding the lichen they need to survive, causing massive losses of reindeer but also losses to Sami culture and wellbeing. This is an impact being felt by the over 100,000 people in the world who herd reindeer outside of Scandinavia – from Alaska, Canada, China, Greenland, Mongolia, and Russia. For example, Nenets herders from the Russian Arctic have had to delay an annual migration across the Ob River because the ice was not thick enough to cross safely. As Sami leader Olav Mathis Eira notes of the cultural impact of climate changes:

Many aspects of Sami culture– language, songs, marriage, child-rearing and the treatment of older persons – are intimately linked with reindeer herding…If reindeer herding disappears, it will have a devastating effect on the whole culture of the Sami people (Yeo, 2014, 1).

These stressors mean that climate change also has multiple additional consequences for Indigenous food security (Bryson et al., 2021). Ongoing and previously reliable sources of food are being disrupted: in the Arctic, Indigenous peoples who hunt polar bears, walrus, seals and caribou, herding reindeer, fishing and gathering, are experiencing changes in species viability and availability (Arctic Council, 2013). As Perspective 2.1 highlights, these impacts have multiple ramifications.

Perspective 2.1Climate Change in Canadian Inuit Communities

Brianna Poirier

Arctic communities across the globe are at the forefront of climate change, with many already experiencing the devastating implications of temperature and sea-level rise, reduced summer sea-ice, glacial melting, coastal erosion and decreased permafrost. Climate change indicators observed by Inuit across Arctic Canada include longer summers, shorter winters and faster thawing of ice; these changes hinder traditionally accurate climate predictions and make travelling on land and ice dangerous (Bonesteel, 2006). These environmental conditions, among others, have severe impacts on Arctic life, culture, food and infrastructure (Andrachuk & Smit, 2012; Furgal & Seguin, 2006). Due to heavy financial and sustenance reliance on hunting and fishing, the Inuit of Inuvialuit have a substantial relationship with both wildlife and weather (Andrachuk & Smit, 2012). Traditional subsistence practices, such as salmon gathering and caribou hunting, are altered when ecosystems are disrupted, which decreases the accessibility to land-based knowledge and language (Markkula et al., 2019).

Tuktoyaktuk, an Inuit community of approximately 900 people, located in the Western Canadian Arctic, within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region of the Northwest Territories, is a good exemplar of these changes. Living on the shores of the Beaufort Sea, residents of Tuktoyaktuk are descendants from the Siglit people, traditionally sea-oriented fur trappers, hunters and herders (Alunik et al., 2003; Usher, 1993). During the early post-contact period, the Inuit who resided around the Beaufort Sea were almost entirely eradicated due to exposure to smallpox and other foreign diseases; this significant loss also resulted in a loss of knowledge particular to the region (Carmack & Macdonald, 2008). Climate change impacts compound these colonial impacts: in Tuktoyaktuk the warming Arctic climate is shifting ecological borders, altering wildlife migration patterns and endangering plant life in tundra climates. Traditional harvesting events of beluga whales and other species revolve around seasonal changes and are reliant on sea ice. Therefore, food security for Tuktoyaktuk community members is at risk due to rising temperatures and subsequent loss of sea ice, in turn causing a decrease in accessibility of country foods (Post et al., 2009), and decreased availability of caribou resulting in significant stress for the people of Tuktoyaktuk. The reproduction cycle of caribou depends on timing of seasonal changes yet warmer temperatures result in earlier vegetative growth - this puts the survival of many herds at risk because caribou migration - which relies on daylight cues - no longer coordinates with vegetation availability (Post et al., 2009; Post & Forschhammer, 2008).

These impacts adversely impact Inuit communities with older populations, high unemployment rates and limited access to retail stores. The spring arrival of whales is another example: impacted by sea ice levels the whales now arrive two and a half weeks earlier than previously experienced. Individuals have also noticed an observed decrease in body mass amongst the whales that arrive. Additionally, community members have cited irregular weather patterns and an inability to predict the weather, which hinders the ability of the community to participate in traditional hunting seasons (Waugh et al., 2018). These changes test the community’s capacity to safely and sustainably harvest wildlife, and maintain Indigenous food sovereignty and the cultural values upheld via hunting (The Wainwright Traditional Council, 2011). Further, climate induced coastal erosion affects housing, and infrastructure and housing costs directly influence the ability of families to afford nutrient-dense foods on a consistent basis. This is because all of the infrastructure in Tuktoyaktuk is built on permafrost, making the community vulnerable to coastal erosion and flooding, which are the results of increasing Arctic temperatures, longer summer seasons and increased sea-ice melt. The long-term ramifications of thawing permafrost on the ecosystem are not fully understood, but the subsequent impacts of ocean acidification, coastal erosion and flooding on marine wildlife are of equal concern for community members due to the continued reliance on traditional hunting for food sources (Manson & Solomon, 2007). These climate changes will have profound impacts on the livelihood and wellbeing of Arctic communities.Yet, Inuit communities have historically persevered in extreme conditions and adapted to significant change via their Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ). IQ collectively refers to traditional ways of knowing, central to all aspects of Inuit livelihood and is especially useful when discussing long-term environmental observations and patterns related to climate change (Bonesteel, 2006).

Utilising IQ in conjunction with scientific knowledge is valuable and helps create a holistic understanding of the relationship between the environment and humans (Markkula et al., 2019). Invaluable information regarding natural ecosystems exists in the experience of Indigenous Peoples in Canada because dependency on the land and its resources for survival develops an intimacy with the environment that many people never experience (Carmack & Macdonald, 2008). The incorporation of IQ in contemporary environmental research will ensure environmental risks and the direction of development are meaningful and accurate for those at the forefront of climate change (Bonesteel, 2006). Homage to historical struggles, resilience and collective desires for healthy, sovereign futures amongst Inuit communities is crucial in developing an understanding of the current impact climate change has on Inuit life (Griffin, 2020).

Such threats to food security as described above, are compounded by the fact that Indigenous populations worldwide also sustain health related impacts from climate change. Numerous case studies of the health impacts of climate change have been documented within the Inuit (Beaumier et al., 2015), the Peruvian Amazon (Hofmeijer et al., 2013), in Canada (Ford, 2012; Furgal & Seguin, 2006; Poutiainen et al., 2013), and Australia (Berry et al., 2010; Bird et al., 2013; Green & Minchin, 2014).

In Canada, for Aboriginal Canadians, existing health challenges will be amplified due to the spread and re-introduction of infectious diseases linked to increased temperatures such as dengue fever, malaria, leishmaniasis, and cholera (Ford, 2012). For example, increased heat will impact practices related to storage and preparation of traditional foods, and thus cause heightened risks of gastroenteritis, food-borne botulism or diseases such as giardia. This is a problem already being experienced by the Batwa people in Uganda (Berrang-Ford et al., 2012; Bryson et al., 2021; Patterson et al., 2017). High rainfall events are also likely to exacerbate exposure to waterborne diseases such as typhoid, or bacillary dysentery. In Canadian, Alaskan, and Amazonian communities, such waterborne diseases are likely to increase diarrheal disease and parasitical infections. In Australia, sea level rise, settlement variability as well as infectious diseases, such as Murray Valley encephalitis and malaria, will impact Indigenous peoples.

Gender inequities are also amplified in climate contexts: for example, many Indigenous women are disproportionately subject to climate related food insecurity and suffer from higher incidences of domestic violence and female displacement because of natural disasters, such as in the Pacific where domestic violence substantively increases after cyclones (Mcleod et al., 2018). Climate droughts in parts of Africa, have led to women and children being forced to walk further to find wood and other supplies. Not only is this time consuming, but also means women have a lot less time to sit down and to pass on their knowledge and teach younger generations. Overall, this gendered terrain of disaster means Indigenous women are more likely to be subject to violence, experience a greater loss of educational opportunities, and experience an increase in their livelihood responsibilities (Bradshaw & Fordham, 2015).

The influence of climate change on gender and health is reinforced by the fact that Indigenous peoples also often live and rely on territories that are particularly physically vulnerable to climate impacts. This is especially challenging for those peoples that have also experienced colonisation (Jones, 2017, 2019; Watts et al., 2018), one legacy of which is ongoing poverty which exacerbates this vulnerability (ILO, 2017; Jones, 2019): Indigenous peoples comprise almost 15% of the world’s poor.

Impacts like sea level rise, increased storms, flooding and desertification (caused by water insecurity), are also creating scenarios where Indigenous communities need to consider whether they need to migrate to survive. Sea level rise and coastal erosion in the Pacific and Alaska mean that whole communities might need to be relocated, while in the Amazon, loss of habitat, resulting from climate related wildfire will restrict access to ancestral lands, and motivate migration into urban areas. Apart from the trauma created by enforced moves, such migration will also disrupt and cause knowledge and cultural loss. Further, Indigenous peoples often suffer from additional economic challenges once they have migrated – many for example, do not find employment or face discrimination (ILO, 2017).

This collusion of poverty and migration will also compound the health impacts of climate change on Indigenous peoples. For example, rising heat levels in workplaces will affect workers on lower incomes and cause heat exhaustion, heat stroke and, at times death. These factors will in turn have significant impacts on work productivity, pay and family incomes overall (ILO, 2017). Too often, Indigenous peoples forced to migrate will also end up living in slums, which are, as places, particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, especially natural disasters (ILO, 2017).

Finally, any consideration of the impacts of climate change on Indigenous peoples is not complete without reflecting on its relationship with the impacts of colonisation. In many countries, colonisation resulted in the invasion, dispossession of Indigenous territories, and missionisation, resulting in enforced losses and disruptions to land, seas, knowledge, language and culture. As such, any attempt to try to advance Indigenous climate adaptation has to be situated within a recognition of the contemporary legacy of colonisation which too often mean that attempts to adapt to climate change are confounded by institutional, cultural and legal barriers that inhibit rather than facilitate Indigenous voices and action. In that context, the perspective by Meg Parsons offers a deeply personal reflection from a Maori perspective on the enduring power of this legacy.

Perspective 2.2

Thinking Beyond the Simplistic Accounts of Māori Vulnerability and Climate Change Adaptation in Aotearoa New Zealand

Meg Parsons

Variations of the common Māori saying ‘the past is always in front of you’ encompasses Māori understandings of time and the importance of knowing one’s whakapapa (genealogical connections) and history (Mahuika, 2011). These extend to discussions of the impacts of climate change, and how best to adapt to changing environmental conditions. My hometown of Ōpōtiki (with a population of less than 3000 people of which more than 65% are Māori) currently holds two notable titles: as Aotearoa New Zealand’s most socio-economically deprived town and the current homicide capital of the nation. Ōpōtiki is located with the rohe (traditional lands and waters) of iwi (tribal group) Whakatohea who endured invasion (the British-led colonial military invasion in 1865) followed by the armed occupation and then the unlawful confiscation of their rohe for Pākehā ‘settlement’ (Walker, 2007). The land on which the town is located was once an interwoven series of landscapes-waterscapes comprised of two rivers (Otara and Waioeka) that meandered and merged together in fertile wetlands, which included lagoons, a diversity of indigenous flora and fauna, as well as Māori communities’ kainga (villages) and cultivations.

Today, Ōpōtiki rests unsteadily on coastal floodplains, which are prone to climate related flood and dry out and shake, due to earthquakes. This settler-scape is made up almost entirely of exotic grasses and trees, with more than 90% of the wetlands having been drained, vegetation cleared, and rivers re-engineered to become straightened channels. The township stands enclosed behind stop banks (levees) designed to protect the township and its residents from the regular flood events that occur. This is the landscape that I grew up with: stop banks and floodwaters; frequently muddy and shaky ground; clover, grass, willows, blackberries, and gorse. Sometimes old folks would recall the days when there were giant trees, thousands of birds flying in the sky, and the rivers were filled with tuna (freshwater eels) and inanga (whitebait). Just as sometimes they would also recount to me how ‘once upon a time in Ōpōtiki‘, no one struggled to find work, no one affiliated with a motorcycle gang, no one ducked bullets during gang violence, and no one’s mother desperately searched their house for spare change in order to buy her whanau (family) a loaf of bread. Just as with fairy tales, my elders’ stories seemed to be in the realm of make-believe rather than my lived reality in Ōpōtiki.Increasingly scientists, engineers, and government officials warn Ōpōtiki residents and others within the wider Eastern Bay of Plenty region that they are unsafe due to the impacts of climate change and that they must be addressed (Leeder, 2017; Picken, 2019; Whakatane District Council, 2019). Under the new banner of climate change adaptation local government-led actions, both planned and enacted, are increasingly being directed at further hard adaptations, and river improvement and flood defences, once called swamp drainage, are now termed climate change adaptation (Parsons et al., 2019).

Climate change, an apparent ‘new’ threat to our safety, demands immediate action. Yet, the township is already an unsafe and marginalised space because of the negative consequences of settler colonisation. My own feelings of safety in Ōpōtiki are not, however, primarily related to floodwaters, sea-level rise or any other ‘natural’ hazard. Instead, my feelings of insecurity, danger, and vulnerability are bound up in the geographies of violence that are a feature of Ōpōtiki, which are never acknowledged by government officials or ‘experts’ when the topic of hazards and vulnerability are discussed. This violence is everywhere and nowhere (because no one wants to acknowledge it), mostly it occurs in homes, but also extends into the school yards, streets, pubs, community venues, and marae (hapū meeting places). Such geographies of violence are not unique to Ōpōtiki, and are found elsewhere both locally, nationally, and internationally; particularly amongst Indigenous and other minority communities that are subjected to settler colonial policies of dispossession, discrimination, and marginalisation. The violence in Ōpōtiki is fuelled by drug and alcohol abuse and criminal gangs, but is firmly rooted in the endemic poverty (that includes multigenerational unemployment, food insecurity, substandard housing stock, and poor access to health, educational, and social services) that can be traced back to Māori colonial dispossession and marginalisation. Like other places around the world, rates of gender violence (men against women and children) in the town and wider region increase markedly during and after an extreme weather event (Houghton, 2009). I have witnessed first-hand, heart-breaking scenes of Māori women, who fled from floodwaters that engulfed their homes in Edgecumbe in April 2017, subjected to abuse by their male whanau (family) members who were struggling to cope with losses of properties, of economic security, and of their sense of control.

Thus, just as the Otara and Waioweka Rivers, their stop banks, and their oftentimes raging floodwaters are central to my memories of growing up in Ōpōtiki, so too are memories of violence, poverty, and marginalisation in the town. For a long time I just accepted it as the ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ way of things, I normalised the stop banks as part of the natural environment just as I normalised the violence and poverty of daily life in Ōpōtiki. It was only when I left did I realise that there was nothing natural about the (settler colonial) way of things.

Accordingly, while dominant scholarship identifies Māori as highly vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change, it also needs to discuss how this vulnerability is not only a product of biophysical conditions but is more significantly a result of historic and contemporary processes driven by settler colonialism, now also interwoven with globalisation and neoliberalism, and characterised for many Indigenous people by poverty and violence.

We need to consider how Mātauaranga Māori can be made central (rather than marginal) to climate change adaptation policies and plans. Mātauranga Māori (the Māori knowledge system) is a relational ontology underpinned by the concept of whakapapa (genealogical connections) which binds humans together with non-humans actors (the land/whenua, rivers/awa, seas/moana, biota, climate, and supernatural beings), not only through their daily activities but also through their whakapapa to all things (Harmsworth & Awatere, 2013; Makey & Awatere, 2018; Salmond et al., 2014). Embedded within Mātauranga Māori, then, is the principle that what affects the individual (the part) affects the collective (the whole). Further, we need to ensure that poverty-reduction and violence-reduction strategies are similarly at the heart of discussions of sustainable climate change adaptation strategies for Ōpōtiki and elsewhere in Aotearoa. We need to decolonise how we think about climate change adaptation and Indigenous climate change adaptation in particular (Photo 2.2).

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Rebuilt Flood levee in Edgecumbe, New Zealand. (Credit: Meg Parsons)

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Parson’s rich insight into the relationship between adaptation and colonisation in Aotearoa is supported by Cameron’s (2012, 4) paper on the Inuit where she points out that there is a failure to attend to colonialism as both an historical and contemporary process, and further, in the context of climate change, “the vulnerability and adaptation frameworks risks delimiting the ways in which [northern] Indigenous perspectives, concerns and critiques, can be heard and be effective”. Specifically, she talks about the tendency to characterise or place Indigenous peoples as ‘local’, tied to specific places and territories.

While there is no doubt that cultural identities remain inextricably connected to specific territories, the assertion of the ‘local’ nature of Indigenous peoples can also be used as a mechanism to “limit the legibility of Indigenous geographies to the realm of the ‘traditional’ ” and in turn “Indigeneity is delimited – only recognised in association with a particular place, hence rendered invisible and without rights to participate in discussions about other places” (Cameron, 2012, 4). In Australia for example, where 75% of Indigenous peoples actually reside in cities, outside their traditional country, the focus on their country as the dominant conceptual frame within which discussions about Indigenous adaptation are bounded, actually limits the possibilities of being heard in other contexts.

In sum, in this chapter we have described some of the many impacts that will be felt in differentiated ways by Indigenous peoples across the world. While our description is by no means comprehensive, they delineate key areas of focus for action. Impacts on health, gender, food security, hunting, gathering and harvesting practice, poverty, traditional knowledge and mobility are profound and amplified (in some places) by the ongoing impact of colonisation. The challenges ahead are clearly immense and complicated by the fact that they do not exist in isolation. They abut and weave into and within each other to create added complexity when trying to build ways forward.

Nonetheless, Indigenous peoples still possess vast stores of traditional knowledge and connection to their land and seas and an ability to draw on their traditions to innovate in the face of new challenges. Indigenous peoples are crucial agents of change because their livelihood systems, occupations, traditional knowledge and ways of life are essential for combating climate change effectively (Paris Agreement 2015). The exploration of the various ways in which different Indigenous groups assert their agency, reject discourses about their ‘lack’ and vulnerability and build responses to these changes, is the theme for the rest of this book.

Over the next few chapters, a synthesis of global Indigenous adaptation initiatives is provided, as well as an analysis of the factors that constrain Indigenous people’s capacity to build effective adaptation over time. Indigenous peoples still face the challenge of how to build effective dialogue between Western science and Indigenous knowledge systems and ways of doing, as well as working out how to nurture their own community knowledge so that it that remains vital, persistent, and inter-generationally transmitted over time (Krupnik et al., 2018). Many Indigenous peoples see developing these dialogues, and addressing climate change impacts as a challenge to their capacity to maintain their cultural responsibilities to their territories and communities. This idea of responsibility is crucial. In Australia this is called ‘caring for country’ but across the world, such responsibility is comprised of a collective set of relationships between people and their land and seas, which enable them all to be nourished and cared for. The enactment, and implementation of these responsibilities, is an active and ages old form of adaptation.

In the next chapter, we present some of the ways in which such adaptations, from an Indigenous perspective is being implemented. We argue that these adaptations are rooted, not in recent demands or events, but located within long standing adaptive traditions and knowledge systems, which have enabled Indigenous peoples to respond to a wide range of climate and other environmental changes over historical time.