Ninth International Conference on Permafrost ... - IARC Research

Ni n t h In t e r n at i o n a l Co n f e r e n c e o n Pe r m a f r o s tphysically healthy, they have become increasingly difficultto hunt, as the occurrence of sinking seals has becomemore common. Local residents have been responding andcoping to environmental changes primarily by adaptingtheir subsistence hunting practices. These findings areconsistent with Reidlinger and Berkes’ (2001) earlier workin the Western Arctic, and suggest that adaptation to rapidcryological change is occurring in the Foxe Basin, off BaffinIsland, as well.During preliminary site visits to Sanikiluaq, Rankin Inlet,and Baker Lake in 2007, other community observations andreports of impacts confirmed the regional nature of change.While the form of environmental expression varied (i.e.,skinny seals in marine environments and thicker willowsinland), the reports all pointed to systemic change.We find these “social observations” (Vlasova 2006) to bean extremely sensitive detector of environmental change.The challenge is then to communicate these findings so thatthey can be integrated with studies that model change onglobal or regional scales. If synergies among multiple factorsacross scales are in fact the case, as the regional variabilityof the warming trends suggest, then strategies for adaptionand mitigation must be capable of recognizing and addressinglocal and regional factors implicated in these changes.Additionally, linking the data generated by physical environmentalstudies with social impacts requires social data. Thefine-grained “social observations” approach may contributemost significantly here. We anticipate additional data on thisquestion from the second project “plants and photographsthrough time,” which provides a direct link to daily life, focusingspatial and temporal observations of plants, and usingphotographs to derive anecdotal information.In terms of proactive adaptation through design, thethird study, investigating appropriate architecture, offers acritical view of past practice and resulting increases in riskassociated with cryospheric change. Next steps will addressincorporation of community values in design of a healingcentre. The fourth project is iterative, and will integrateresults from the other studies as they become available. Thefifth project to develop protocols for social, environmental,and economic observations is well underway, with aconsultation meeting scheduled in April 2008.These projects are contributions to PPS Arctic, aninternational study of the impacts of a changing tree line, ledby Annika Hofgaard of Norway. We will conduct a secondseason of fieldwork on all five studies in 2008–09. In thelonger term, we plan to continue transdisciplinary workand welcome connections with other researchers who aresimilarly engaged.ReferencesACIA 2005. Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. CambridgeUniversity Press, 1042 pp. Web site: http://www.acia.uaf.edu (accessed 10 March 2007).Duerden., F. 2004. Translating climate change impacts at thecommunity level. Arctic 57(2): 204-212.Furgal, C. & Seguin, J. 2006. Climate change, health,and vulnerability in Canadian northern aboriginalcommunities. Environmental Health Perspectives114(12): 1964-1970.Hinzman, L.D., Bettez., N.D., Bolton, W.R., Chapin, F.S.,Dyurgerov, M.B., Fastie, C.L., Griffith, B., Hollister,R.D., Hope, A., Huntington, H.P., Jensen, A.M. Jia,G.J., Jorgenson, T., Kane, D.L., Klein, D.R., Kofinas,G., Lynch, A.H., Lloyd, A.H., Mcguire, A.D., Nelson,F.E., Oechel, W.C., Osterkamp, T.E., Racine, C.H.,Romanovsky, V.E., Stone, R.S., Stow, D.A., Sturm,M., Tweedie, C.E. Vourlitis, G.L., Walker, M.D.,Walker, D.A., Webber, P.J., Welker, J.M. 2005.Evidence and implications of recent climate changein northern Alaska and other Arctic regions. ClimaticChange 72: 251-298.Reidlinger D, & Berkes F. 2001. Responding to climatechange in northern communities: Impacts andadaptations. Arctic 54(1): 96-98.Vlasova, T. 2006. Arctic residents’ observations and humanimpact assessments in understanding environmentalchanges in boreal forests: Russian experience andcircumpolar perspectives. Mitigation and AdaptationStrategies for Global Change 11: 897-909.Wilcox, B. & Kueffer, C. 2008. Transdisciplinarity inEcoHealth: Status and future prospects. EcoHealthdoi:10.1007/s10393-008-0161-5 (accessed 21 March2008).Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Smith, A., Barry, T.L., Coe,A.L., Bown, P.R., Brenchley, P., Cantrill, D., Gale,A., Gibbard, P., Gregory, F.J., Hounslow, M.W., Kerr,A.C., Pearson, P., Knox, R., Powell, J., Waters, C.,Marshall, J., Oates, M., Rawson, P. & Stone, P. 2008.Are we now living in the Anthropocene? GSA Today18(2): 4-8.AcknowledgmentsWe thank the people of the communities of Nunavut, theNunavut Research Institute, the <strong>International</strong> Polar YearOffice of the Government of Canada, Carleton University,and the Russian Academy of Science, Institute of Geography.We also thank the organizers of NICOP 2008.66