May 2017
FROM FISH TO FORESTS AND CONFLICTS TO COFFEE...HOW HUMANS
ARE AFFECTED BY CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate change has major consequences
for biodiversity and human communities. Building resilience has never been more
important and Indigenous Peoples are showing the way.
By Tero Mustonen & Hannibal Rhoades
Shifts in the distribution of land, marine and
freshwater species caused by climate change are a growing cause of species
extinction, conflict, and major economic uncertainty, says a major new study that highlights the extent of these species shifts.
Published in the prestigious journal, Science, the
study recognises the crucial role knowledge held by the world's indigenous
peoples has to play in conservation and ecological restoration efforts that
help build resilience to climate change
"Previous studies have shown that land-based
species are moving polewards by an average of 17 km per decade, and marine
species by 72 km per decade. Our study demonstrates how these changes are
affecting worldwide ecosystems and human health and culture in the
process," says Associate Professor Gretta Pecl, lead author of the report,
from IMAS and the Centre for Marine Socioecology, Tasmania.
"While some species favour a warmer climate
and are becoming more abundant, many others that humans exploit or interact
with face depletion or extinction. Human survival depends on other life on
earth so the redistribution of the planet's living organisms is a substantial
challenge for people worldwide," she adds.
EXTINCTION, DISEASE AND CONFLICT
The depletion and extinction of species as a result of climate
change forms part of a wider pattern. Scientists are broadly in agreement that
Earth is currently undergoing a sixth mass extinction event that it could take 10
to 30 million years for Earth to recover from.
Due to human-induced environmental impacts, globally, species are
going extinct at 1-10,000 times the ecologically normal ‘back ground rate'.
These drastic losses in biodiversity are reducing the resilience of ecosystems
and their ability to cope with ecological shocks, like increasingly frequent
extreme weather events caused by climate change.
According to the study, other challenges posed by shifts in species
distribution include escalating conflicts over species moving from one
‘economic zone' to another, as in the case of Iceland's ‘mackerel wars.'
Livelihoods, employment and profitability in industries such as
marine tourism and coffee growing are being jeopardised as primary growing
zones shift, corals die, jellyfish infest waters used for recreation, and
urchins destroy fish habitats in kelp forests.
Climate change-related species shifts will also have profound
consequences for human health. Rising temperatures are encouraging the poleward
spread of mosquitos capable of carrying malaria, placing new regions at greater
risk of this and other illnesses.
Changes in the distribution of species are also directly impacting
the food security and traditional knowledge systems of Indigenous Peoples who
rely on subsistence herding, hunting and fishing activities for their physical,
cultural and spiritual wellbeing.
ARCTIC IN FOCUS
The Arctic is an area of particular concern in the study. With
Arctic temperatures recently at 20°C above average and sea ice at its lowest
recorded extent, in 2016 the authors of the comprehensive Arctic Resilience Report warned that the rapid
melting of Arctic ice could trigger polar ‘tipping points' with catastrophic
consequences worldwide.
Indigenous Peoples who still retain close, subsistence
relationships with Arctic ecosystems have been the first to notice the biological
‘indicators' and ‘subtle signs' of these drastic climate impacts. The authors
of the Science study have documented these observations in
collaboration with Arctic Indigenous Peoples, making them visible through the
study.
One such example comes from the Näätämö River, one of Europe's last
free-flowing rivers to host wild populations of Atlantic salmon. Located in
Finland's far Arctic North, for thousands of years, Näätämö and her salmon have
been at the heart of the Skolt Sami People's subsistence and culture.
This relationship has endured despite the forcible relocations suffered by the
Skolt Saami during the 20th Century.
Climate change is endangering Näätämö's salmon populations and the
Skolt way of life, whilst mining, aquaculture and tourism are potential future
drivers of change. Increased temperatures and rainfall variability are causing
the salmon's aquatic habitat to become less optimal for the fish, with drought
endangering salmon spawning. If water levels become too low, salmon migrating
to upriver spawning sites from the Atlantic are not able to swim in the river.
Such stressors are what can cause a species to shift their range in search of
more favourable conditions.
Another case study comes from Kolyma in Russian Siberia where the
Chukchi People's physical, cultural and spiritual wellbeing relies primarily on
reindeer herding. Climate change is causing irregular freeze-thaw events that
lock-up the reindeer's principal winter food, lichen, beneath a layer of ice,
as well as the melting of permafrost and other impacts that are causing changes
in reindeer migration patterns. Maintaining the transhumance way of life that
the Chukchi People have traditionally operated is becoming more and more
challenging.
INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE CRUCIAL FOR CLIMATE RESILIENCE
However, as well as being a region of global concern, in a Science first,
the study highlights the work of indigenous Arctic communities as major
inspirations in the global effort to curb and build resilience to climate
change.
In climate circles, resilience is defined as the capacity of
interrelated human and natural systems to "buffer and adapt to stress and shocks, and thus navigate and even shape
change".
The Skolt Sami are using their traditional knowledge and working
hand-in-hand with scientists to guide efforts to restore the Näätämö
River, building back the water system's resilience and in turn their own.
As part of the pioneering Näätämö River Co-Management
Initiative, the Skolt
Saami have developed locally devised indicators of environmental change that
are more sensitive than Finland's nationally mandated regulatory parameters.
Based on traditional knowledge transmitted and updated down the generations,
these indicators systems are helping the Skolt Saami and partner scientists to
detect and address ecological changes in a pre-emptive fashion.
The Skolt Saami have already identified and begun to restore key
salmon spawning sites, helping the embattled fish to reproduce. They have also
begun to adapt their own fishing practices and encourage other local
subsistence fishers to do the same. Changes include using one net during the
salmon season, rather than three and shifting fishing practices to focus on
other species that inhabit the river, including fish that prey on young salmon.
The innovative co-management structure of the project is giving the
Skolt Saami a louder voice in matter concerning the
Näätämö River, opening spaces for them to share
observations and recommendations based on traditional knowledge. ‘Co-managers'
in the process include scientists and local authorities, brought together in a
structure first pioneered in North Karelia, Finland.
‘OUR BEST CHANCE FOR SURVIVAL'
Showcasing the efforts of the Skolt Saami and other Indigenous
Peoples like the Chukchi, the Science article is an important recognition of the vital role
indigenous knowledge and its holders have to play in leading efforts to respond
to climate change.
"Most of the things we hear and learn are narratives of how
serious the northern climate change is getting", says Pauliina Feodoroff,
President of the Saa'mi Nue'tt cultural organization.
"This article (the Science study) and the work connected with it through the
Näätämö Collaborative Management Project has allowed us to partner in new ways
with scientists to detect changes. Most importantly, this new dialogue contains
elements of restoring some of the damages that have already happened, helping
to build our resilience. The project and the article demonstrate how exact and
relevant our Indigenous Sámi knowledge is in assessing and responding to
climate change, in partnership with science."
Dr Tero Mustonen, co-author of both this article and the new Science study
and Director of the Snowchange Cooperative, an Arctic-wide network of
indigenous and traditional peoples, says the new study is a call to action for
more Indigenous knowledge-led ecosystem restoration.
"For many Indigenous communities, the climate change of today
results from the past decades, even centuries of industrial uses of lands in
their homelands that has caused environmentally negative consequences. Present
resilience can be built, as has been demonstrated by the Skolt Sámi in Finland,
through locally led efforts of ecological restoration in those areas where it
makes sense. Indigenous knowledge has also proven to be a viable method of
detecting change, such as arrival of new species to northern locations",
says Mustonen.
In light of the new study's findings, Mustonen is calling for a
moratorium on destructive and extractive development activities in Arctic
environments and territories, where the preservation of carbon sinks can help
slow the impacts of climate change.
"Permafrost melt is a global event. Industries, like oil and
gas have no role in these regions anymore. This is about global climate risk
and climate security. Preservation of these marshmires, old-growth forests and
tundra habitats, which have been governed for millennia sustainably by the Sámi
and other Indigenous peoples, are our best bet for survival as the Arctic
warms. They also contain the endemic species of the North, whose preservation
has inherent value," says Mustonen. – Third World Network Features.
-ends-
About the author: Dr Tero Mustonen - a passionate defender of traditional worldview and
cosmology of his people, is a Finn and head of the village of Selkie in North
Karelia, Finland. He has worked as the traditional knowledge coordinator for
Eurasia for the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment. Professionally, he works for
the award-winning Snowchange Cooperative, which is a non-profit organization
based in Finland with members across the Arctic, including the communities of
Eastern Sámi, Chukchi, Yukaghir, Sakha, Evenk, Even, Inuit, Inuvialuit,
Gwitchin and many more. Mustonen is well-known scholar of Arctic biodiversity,
climate change and indigenous issues; he has won several human rights and
environmental awards for the work with Snowchange and indigenous peoples of the
Arctic.
Hannibal Rhoades is Communications and Advocacy Coordinator at The Gaia Foundation, in
the UK. Hannibal is a contributing writer at Intercontinental
Cry and has covered stories of
indigenous and local communities working for environmental and social justice
for many publications
-ends-
The above article is reproduced from the Ecologist, 20 April 2017.
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