By Lena Simon
Executive Summary
Native communities in Alaska face specific vulnerabilities to climate change. In particular, they face risks to their traditional food systems of hunting, fishing, and gathering. Inflexible government regulations surrounding hunting and other subsistence activities harm more than help the ability of indigenous Alaskans to adapt to changing migration patterns and other climate change-related disruptions to traditional subsistence. To amend this, inherent rights of indigenous Alaskans to hunting, fishing, and harvesting on all Alaskan lands must be affirmed on a federal level, and co-management structures must be adopted that engage simultaneously with indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and climate science.
Background: Environmental Threats to Indigenous Livelihoods
The Alaskan environment is changing and will continue to change in many different ways: melting permafrost, increased erosion, lake drainage, changes in fish distribution, change in water levels, change in weather patterns, caribou migration disruption, shifts in ranges of walrus, whales, and seals, unstable sea ice, and more, which all contribute to negative effects on transportation, food security, and the continuation of subsistence activities such as hunting and fishing (US EPA).
Caribou hunting holds significance for many of the 225 sovereign native tribes in Alaska (Nutall et al., 60). However, climate change is poised to threaten the migration patterns of caribou, whose populations have already been in decline (Rubano). Climate change is also expected to make weather less predictable and ground more dangerous to travel on. For example, melting sea ice is likely to alter caribou migration patterns as well as temperature and precipitation changes. Early ice break-up can harm caribou populations by causing them to fall through the ice, and hunters are at higher risk of drowning or injury as the ice thins as well (Brubaker et al.). The migratory patterns of traditionally harvested foods such as salmon and sea birds are also changing. Many species are likely to shift northward, which affects their availability to hunters, who may have to travel farther to hunt.
Inflexible regulations can combine with environmental factors to threaten food security in the context of climate change. For the Koyukun people in the Koyukuk-Middle Yukon (KMY) region of Alaska, warming temperatures have shifted the fall to arrive later, but the corresponding regulatory window of time designated for fall moose hunting has not shifted to match (McNeeley, 836). This makes it more difficult to encounter bull moose and legally harvest them during the hunting season and increases the likelihood of illegal hunting outside of the regulatory window. Punishment or fines for this behavior further disempower Alaska Natives’ collective ability to adapt.
Recommendations
The current legislation that concerns subsistence use in Alaska has faced wide criticism from Native Alaskan communities and is inadequate in the face of threats to subsistence from climate change. Neither the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) or the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) adequately provide the explicit and inherent right of Alaska Natives to hunt, fish, and harvest on all Alaskan lands and waters (Minority Rights Group International). Though they do contain language that implies a commitment to this issue, they are ineffective in practice. Alaskan lands are regulated by a federal-state dual management system, which has resulted in confusing regulatory overlap: “On some federal public lands, federal regulations may be more restrictive than state regulations covering the same area,” and the qualifications for participation in subsistence hunting differ between federal and state law (“Know Alaska’s Regulations”; “Subsistence in Alaska”).
If indigenous peoples in Alaska are to adapt to increasing food insecurity in a sustainable way, Alaska Native rights to subsistence activities and the co-management of natural resources must be recognized completely on a federal level in order to escape the pitfalls of the dual management system. The National Congress of American Indians, the largest organization of American Indian and Alaskan tribal governments, published a resolution in 2013 that supported federal recognition of Alaska Native hunting and fishing rights, which indicates a level of support for this policy (The National Congress of American Indians). Support from Alaska Native tribal communities is necessary for this implementation to ensure the preservation of tribal sovereignty.
Adaptation to climate change can be further bolstered by scientific monitoring and management that prioritizes Traditional Ecological Knowledge and provides decision-making authority and co-management powers to Alaska Native communities. The Fourth National Climate Assessment recommends the incorporation of indigenous knowledges into climate adaptation plans for American Indians and Alaska Natives (USGCRP [Tribes]). Traditional knowledge and observations from indigenous stakeholders should thus be applied to ecosystem management, scientific monitoring, and action-based adaptation solutions. As of 2018, three tribal climate adaptation plans have been completed in Alaska, and three are in progress; future climate adaptation plans should be implemented in collaboration with local knowledge (USGCRP [Alaska]).
Limitations and Barriers
Due to decades of government regulations and incentives, Alaska Native communities participate in a mixed economy, defined by a mixture of cashflow through wage employment and subsistence activity. As full-time employment can limit available time for hunting, Alaskans have supplemented their food supply with purchased groceries. Traditional food gathering is as important as ever to indigenous communities due to its social, cultural, and nutritional utility; however, younger generations are becoming more and more dependent on wage employment, store-bought foods, and Western school systems that do not allow for transfer of traditional knowledge. The economic barrier to hunting “has made it difficult for the youth to develop the comparable hunting and fishing skill set as previous generations,” (Moerlein and Carothers 2012, 6).
Even if federal hunting and fishing rights are established that allow for food sources to remain able to meet the needs of Alaska Natives, permafrost melt poses risks to food storage capabilities. Food is traditionally stored in ice cellars, which keeps the harvest reliably preserved. If the land is to erode and melt away, these cellars could leak and collapse, and contaminate the food inside, forcing increased reliance on expensive store-bought foods (USGCRP [Alaska]).
There are also demographic factors to consider in the discussion of adaptation. For example, demographic shift can, and has already to some degree, caused Native Alaskan communities with histories rooted in caribou hunting to face a loss of the traditional ecological knowledge that is necessary to perform the task. If more adults take up full-time jobs and have no time for caribou hunting, or if climate change or some other mix of factors spurs mass relocation to other cities, this knowledge base will become slimmer (Nutall et al 2004, 66). Additionally, if ecosystems of Alaska change so drastically through climate change so as to become unfamiliar and unpredictable, traditional ecological knowledge might lose its power of effective application.
Conclusion
In order to effectively adapt to climate change, the sovereign status of Alaska Native communities must be respected to the fullest extent. This can be done by federally mandating the explicit rights of Alaska Natives to perform subsistence activities on all Alaskan lands and waters so that no hunting, fishing, or harvesting done by indigenous Alaskans, activities which are integral to Alaska Native livelihood and culture, are considered “illegal.” Indigenous sovereignty can be further recognized through bolstered monitoring infrastructure and climate adaptation planning that specifically prioritize consultation with Traditional Ecological Knowledge and place indigenous stakeholders in key decision-making positions. Improving access and reducing punitive responses to traditional food-gathering will improve climate adaptation prospects in Alaska Native communities, and increasing the role that Alaska Natives play in their futures in the face of threats posed by climate change may help mitigate the loss of traditional ecological knowledge that is already being documented. The federal government and the state government both have roles to play in implementing these policies, but the ultimate aim of these policies is to promote self-determination and sovereignty for Alaska Natives in their response to climate change.
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