Facing the North Slope's future: Indigenous experts and scientists co-assess a changing environment
Abstract: The climate, sea ice, and coastal regime of Alaska’s North Slope has substantially changed over the last few decades as coastal temperatures have increased and sea ice concentration in the adjacent seas has decreased. Indigenous users of sea ice and local planners increasingly must interpret and respond to change in the context of traditional knowledge and indigenous worldviews, subsistence activities, environmental hazards, growing commercial activity in the Arctic ocean, and interactions with the increasing “community” of visiting scientists. Local indigenous peoples in the Arctic face their future with a much longer baseline than science and, therefore, view change through a unique lens. Arctic change and sea ice retreat is often communicated as if the Arctic is a unified system; however, most often, local and regional changes are unique and more intricately linked to impacts on communities. This talk will explore new and long-lasting collaborations between Arctic scientists and Iñupiat experts on the Alaska’s North Slope to monitor, understand, and respond to a changing environment. Stories will be shared from projects to (1) map and assess the state of shorefast ice during the village of Barrow’s traditional spring whaling season, (2) track the long-term health of harvested bowhead whales – an ice obligate species, (3) co-assess ice and ocean knowledge to aid emergency preparedness and response, and (4) develop local knowledge sea ice resources, capable of interfacing with science. Such collaborations are imperative as the local human memory of past conditions is disappearing alongside the Arctic ice and the familiar behavior of the North Slope’s coastal environment.
