Indigenous people feel climate policy, bearing the brunt of rising temperatures

With subpolar and Arctic reach of the Northwest Territories (NWT), the climate is warming faster than most other places on Earth. Decades before scientists and governments grasped the threat of rising temperatures, indigenous people in the region were raising alarms amid public debates on climate policy.

“Backing back to the 90s, our elders were seeing changes and learning about the dire consequences that follow,” said Nicole Redbirds, a member of the NWT’s Denı́nuKų́ę́First Nation and director of the Indigenous Planetary Health Department at Schlich School of Medicine.

“The elders were talking about changes in temperature, snowfall, and water flow patterns. And the weather became unpredictable, and there were sudden appearances of plants, animals and insects they had never seen before.

Global warming is also changing the landscape itself. The fused permafrost leads to the collapse of the entire lake, and wildfire seasons are not only longer, but more intense. Among the effects of destructive change is the loss of traditional food sources and contamination of air and waterways.

The Redbirds, who began researching in the Aixi community, says it is clear that land health cannot be separated from the health of people that maintain. Her work now focuses on amplifying voices and enhancing indigenous knowledge at the forefront of climate change.

“The sometimes implicit consequence of current climate policy is the alienation of those who have the most important knowledge to help us out of this confusion in the first place,” she said.

Indigenous people who have been evacuated due to climate policy

The Redvers team recently completed a project to map climate-related impacts to indigenous communities around the world, from the Ogiek people in Mau Forest in Kenya to communities in Uganda, Thailand, India and Northern Europe. Their work revealed the dark side of climate policy. That is, they were evicted from their ancestor land in the name of conservation or carbon offsetting.

In Kenya, Ogiek won a court in favour of land rights, but was forced to remove it soon after. Proponents say that indigenous lands in some countries are recognized by other countries that purchase land rights for carbon credits.

“The same institutions that have driven out people who have managed land for generations also say that indigenous people’s knowledge is a priority. But knowledge does not come without people. People do not come without the sovereignty of the community that retains the rights and knowledge of the land of Indigenous people.”

Redvers says Indigenous communities need to be cautious about revealing their knowledge.

“We have a long history of extraction. We incorporate Indigenous knowledge without consent and use it for our own benefit without benefiting our community. There is no intellectual property protection for Indigenous knowledge.

Redvers attributes the concept that land conservation should not live in a eurocentric view that living on land contradicts the reality of indigenous land management.

“Indigenously managed land has been proven to store more carbon and maintain greater biodiversity than government and business-controlled land,” she said.

Climate message resonates with every community

Ultimately, Redvers believes it is not the private sector, not the government or community that drives the next wave of environmental policy changes.

“Insurers can lose the most. They already calculate the costs of floods, fires and disasters. If you can’t guarantee most infrastructure across North America, you have no choice when dealing seriously with the health of the planet.”

Rather than relying on scientific reporting, scientists and policymakers need to reach more people through personal community-based narratives in a prioritization language. While working in North Dakota for President Donald Trump’s first presidency, she discovered that she reframed the conversation and revealed how receptive people are.

“It’s a conservative nation and it’s an oil state, so when you say ‘climate change’ people will shut down. But I’ll talk to farmers about the health of the land, the happiness of the farm.

The political situation in Canada has brought some progress when the government observes the treaty and enacts Indigenous land conservation programs, Redvers said.

“Canada and Australia have provided funds to Indigenous communities to manage their territory. I would like to see this model implemented elsewhere. It will support the health of the planet and address some of the land’s evictions.”

Land rights-based solutions

Redvers is also encouraged by new directions in the Canadian medical community. Most medical schools across Canada, including Schlich’s medicine and dentistry, signed the 2023 declaration of the Academic Hygiene Institute on Planetary Safeguard.

“This is not only a recognition of the Code Red we are on, but it is also a commitment to integrating the concepts of health and environmental issues of the planets across Canada into medical school education and research. This is a great momentum for Canadian leadership, even further than other G7 countries,” she said.

The common understanding that human health depends on planetary health drives action at the community level, not just at more institutions, Redvers said. The key to that action is to ensure that Indigenous communities are not hampered by caring for their land.

“If you are serious about addressing the threat to the health of the planet, you should stop asking, ‘What kind of Indigenous knowledge can you use?’ And we begin to think about ways to allow Indigenous people to stay on the land, practice management and pass it on to future generations. ”