With climate change comes many threats to the Northern Communities of Canada. A significant threat is to the harvesting of renewable resources. Country food is locally derived plants, animals and fish which have been harvested from the land (Donaldson et al. 2010). It is suggested that as well as its nutrition benefits, the harvesting and consumption of country food is linked to a more active lifestyle and participation in cultural activities (Receveur and Kunhlein 2000). Much of a community identity and tradition comes from the hunting, collection and sharing of food.
Ford et al. (2008) look at some of the effects of climate change which I will summarise here. Climate change has caused changes to the weather and its predictability. Hunting can be very dangerous and needs to be done under the correct weather conditions. The elders of the communities are finding it ever more difficult to predict the weather conditions and their predictions are becoming increasingly wrong. This means that hunters often have to spend more nights in the wilderness waiting for the correct conditions before they can continue their hunting. Alongside this, the increases in weather extremes are meaning that hunters are often unprepared for weather events.
Whilst the change in predictability is often delaying hunting, some weather changes are preventing hunting all together at certain times of the year. Changes in strength, frequency and direction of winds mean that some summer hunting grounds which are reached by boat can’t be accessed as frequently as before. Sea ice isn’t being formed until later in the year which is preventing access to some hunting grounds until the sea ice has formed. Changes in the snow fall, with more snow falling on ice, makes it more dangerous for hunters as thin ice is more difficult to spot when covered in snow meaning that there are increasing incidences of hunters falling through the ice.
Alongside the climate change impacts, there has been a decline in traditional hunting skills. This is due in part to compulsory schooling and sedentarisation which mean that the young in the community are unable to learn the skills they need to be hunters. This lack of knowledge means that hunting has become more dangerous, and this coupled with the climate change means that it is likely to get even more dangerous in the future.
It is therefore likely, that if there is a decline in the collection, hunting and consumption of country food that there will be a decline in health and community participation. It may be possible that the impacts to renewable resource harvesting may be alleviated through the use of technology such as weather forecasting and GPS and this will be discussed in a later blog.
