Abstract
As with many Indigenous Peoples, the Siberian Evenki nomadic reindeer herders and hunters have observed increasing consequences of climate change on the cryosphere and biodiversity. Since 2017, they have observed previously unthinkable changes in topography. Based exclusively on an Evenki Indigenous Ecological Knowledge system-social anthropology coproduction and community-based continuous observation from 2013, this paper analyses what a Subarctic People observes, knows, does not know, hypothesizes, and models (collectively or individually) about climate change impacts on Indigenous landscape types typical for local river systems. These landscapes are crucial tools for traditional activities. To the nomads, the landscape changes emerge from general anomalies: competition from new plant species; atmosphere–ground–vegetation interactions; icing blisters decrease; rising receding river water interactions; the formation of new soil, ice, and snow types; increasing ground, air, and water temperatures; and the (non)circulation of harsh air throughout the snowpack. We demonstrate the science-like structure and value of Indigenous typologies and hypotheses.
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Acknowledgements
The paper was written as a result of the Evenki Community-Based Transdisciplinary Observatories, which were supported by the projects: BRISK (Bridging Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge about Global Changes in the Arctic: Adaptations and Vulnerabilities of Environment and Societies (2013–2016, French National Research Agency funded); BRISK’S OBS (Observatories of BRISK) (2014–2017), and BRISK’s OBS ENV (OBServatories for BRidging Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge about ENVironmental changes in the Arctic) (2018–2021) French-Polar Institute-IPEV funded. These observatories were conceived of and established in January 2013 by the authors and L. Egorova (a Evenki weather forecaster). We greatly thank Evenki co-researchers and nomadic families for sharing their knowledge, observations, and trust. We are grateful for the comments provided by Prof. T. Callaghan. This paper was conceived of by A. Lavrillier and co-written by both authors on the basis of material in Evenki translated by S. Gabyshev. For ethno-linguistic analysis, we used ELAN (Version 5.9) computer software [(2020). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Retrieved from https://archive.mpi.nl/tla/elan]. We are grateful to the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Paris-Saclay funded by CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research), and to the UVSQ for financing the translation costs.
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Lavrillier, A., Gabyshev, S. An Indigenous science of the climate change impacts on landscape topography in Siberia. Ambio 50, 1910–1925 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01467-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01467-w