ADAPTATION TO ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

While several damaging effects of environmental change have already been documented and continue to occur, it should not be assumed that all changes will be negative. For example, the appearance of new species moving north as a result of climate warming may represent the introduction of new subsistence species, as is being observed with moose in Labrador and Nunatsiavut most recently. As well, the agency of northern peoples must not be discounted. As Duerden (2004) explains, “the North’s Indigenous populations are certainly not neophytes in dealing with climate-generated stress” (see Box 8.5).

Box 8.4

A Promising Practice: Walrus-Testing Program at the Nunavik Research Centre

Walrus are traditionally harvested for food in northern coastal communities, including about half of the communities in Nunavik (Larrat et al., 2012). Meat is frequently eaten raw or fermented (Proulx et al., 2002), but the consumption of undercooked meat represents a zoonotic hazard (Larrat et al., 2012). During the 1980s and 1990s, outbreaks of the potentially fatal trichinellosis caused by the consumption of trichinella-infected walrus meat led Inuit communities in Nunavik to develop a program that tests walrus meat for the disease-causing zoonotic parasite (Proulx et al., 2002). The Nunavik Trichinellosis Prevention Program (NTPP) is a regionally based screening program for disease prevention that began in 1992 in Salluit and was then expanded to other walrus-harvesting communities in 1996 (Larrat et al., 2012).

Hunters participate in the program on a voluntary basis and, with the assistance of local HTAs or health centres, ship samples to the Nunavik Research Centre (NRC) in Kuujjuaq, Quebec (GN, 2011; Larrat et al., 2012). Once the NRC receives the sample, results are generally processed and communicated within 24 hours (Larrat et al., 2012).

Based on the absence of recent cases of trichinellosis from walrus meat, the program’s economic feasibility, and the positive implications it has demonstrated on the continuation of the hunt, Larrat et al. (2012) conclude that the NTPP could be used as “a model for a successful health-related prevention program in the Arctic.”

Two new laboratories, in Nain, Nunatsiavut, and Yellowknife, NWT, have also been created and equipped with basic testing equipment (Owens et al., 2012). Larrat and colleagues attribute the NTPP’s success to the nature of the disease and its origin, the existence of an efficient method to analyze results, inter-sectoral partnerships and local participation, and a “science-to-action” approach.

143 Chapter 8 Environmental Change

Further work is required to investigate the complex ways that relevant variables (e.g., cultural history, local conditions, attitudes, economic relationships) interact and condition community responses to climate change (Duerden, 2004). However, evidence indicates that, in some cases, climate change may open avenues to previously unattainable possibilities, including new hunting opportunities. For example, hunters on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska have been able to take bowhead whales in late fall due to later freeze-up, helping them counteract some of the climate-related challenges with the more customary spring hunt (Noongwook et al., 2007). Warming temperatures may also increase opportunities for local food production in some regions, alleviating the potential stress of relying on transportation networks connected with the south. Increased summer temperatures and growing periods in regions such as the western Arctic may enhance opportunities for small-scale northern agriculture; this may provide additional and potentially more cost-efficient, local sources of food. Mills (2001), for example, identified significant areas (39 to 57 million hectares) of potentially viable land for northern agriculture in the western Arctic under future climate scenarios. Similarly, as acknowledged in Quebec’s Plan Nord (more recently known as Le Nord pour tous), Northern Quebec has 1.5 million hectares of arable land. Quebec’s 2011–2016 action plan includes several priority initiatives for the bio-food sector, including a bio-food research network³⁵ north of the 49^th parallel, the construction of greenhouses in the North, the expansion of a development strategy for non-timber forest products, a sustainable development strategy for small northern fruits, and the development of a joint strategy to promote local projects outside the regions covered (Government of Québec, 2011). The Plan Nunavik also lists a number of bio-food production pilot projects, including community greenhouses and the domestication of caribou, muskox, and ptarmigan (KRG, 2012). AANDC’s Climate Change Adaptation Program supports Aboriginal and northern

35 The network facilitates the exchange of information on bio-food technologies and developments among the municipalité de la Baie James, the Cree Regional Authority, and the Kativik Regional Government (KRG, 2012).

Box 8.5

Resilience and Adaptability as Responses to Climate Change

“The change is so gradual that we adapt without even noticing, our ability to adapt kind of makes it easier, we change without even knowing, we do what we have to do.”

— Deh Gah Got’ie Dene First Nation community member on adapting to environmental changes and access to traditional food (Guyot et al., 2006)

communities in their efforts “to address risks and challenges posed by climate change impacts and to become more resilient” through partnerships that enable communities to plan for, and adapt to, climate change (AANDC, 2012a).

8.7 CONCLUSIONS

Food safety, cultural continuity, mobility and the ability to hunt safely, as well as access to nutritious food and traditional knowledge exchange are but a few ways environmental change impacts food security. Changing environmental conditions affect habitat and sustainability of species; important populations of traditional/country food species in northern Canada are changing in quantity and quality due to environmental and anthropogenic forces. Environmental conditions have also transformed the places and practices wherein traditional knowledge about food, land, and wildlife has been adapted and transmitted.

Land use changes from resource exploration and development activities impact northern Aboriginal peoples’ traditional/country food security, food sovereignty, health, and wellness, and must be better understood. Contaminants are still found in northern ecosystems, although the benefits of a healthy and nutritious traditional/country food diet continue to outweigh the risks of food-based contaminant exposure. All these changes are of cultural and health-related significance for northern Aboriginal peoples.

145 Chapter 9 Northern Governance and Food Security

• The Right to Food and Food Sovereignty

• Circumpolar Arctic Governance

• Governance in Northern Canada

• Conclusions

9

Northern Governance and Food Security