Climate change exhibit provides a podium for indigenous voices

The Inuit of Canada do have their own spot in the exhibit now on display at the National Museum of the American Indian, in Washington D.C.. A video from Cambridge Bay shows community members building a traditional kayak and features traditional Inuit throat singing. Elders reflect on how things have changed in their lifetime. (PHOTO BY JUSTIN NOBEL)

Sarah James, a Gwich’in community leader and spokesperson, in her home in the Arctic Village, Alaska. (PHOTO BY NICOLAS VILLAUME/ CONVERSATIONS WITH THE EARTH)

An exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian, in Washington D.C., called “Conversations with the Earth: Indigenous Voices on Climate Change,” which opened in July and runs through January 2, reveals some of the more complex ways climate change is affecting indigenous peoples. (PHOTO BY JUSTIN NOBEL)

“Conversations with the Earth: Indigenous Voices on Climate Change,” an exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C., explores the impact of global climate change from the perspective of 15 communities in 13 countries — including Nunavut’s Cambridge Bay. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SMITHSONIAN)

JUSTIN NOBEL

“Because of this climate change issue, now there is a problem we have in this community, our sea has changed not like before.”

These could be the words of an Inuit elder but they actually belong to a man half a world away.

John Pondrein lives on the lush palm-lined Pacific island of Pityilu, off the north coast of Papua New Guinea. The climate and geography of this tropical island could not be more different than the tundra of Nunavut, but the daily hum of a still mostly traditional lifestyle is something many Inuit would be able to relate to.

Another similarity is that both places are being seriously affected by climate change.

Both Pondrein’s people, and the Inuit of Nunavut, are the subject of an exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian, in Washington D.C., called “Conversations with the Earth: Indigenous Voices on Climate Change.”

The exhibit, which opened in July and runs through January 2, reveals some of the more complex ways climate change is affecting indigenous peoples.

“Climate change isn’t just about houses falling off a cliff in Shishmaref or polar bears stuck on an ice floe,” says Igor Krupnik, an anthropologist in the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center. “Life is very complex in small villages, and climate factors and environmental factors often come hand in hand with social changes.”

The Gwich’in, who live in a belt that stretches from northern Alaska, through the top of the Yukon and into the northwestern part of the Northwest Territories, have experienced unusually hot and dry summers in recent years, the exhibition tells.

This has dried out the lichen which carpets the land and led to a series of unprecedented forest fires. The fires are thought to have disrupted the migration patterns of the Porcupine River caribou herd, which once numbered 170,000 and is considered one of the largest caribou herds on earth.

Much like the Inuit, the Gwich’in have traditionally relied on caribou, whose plentiful numbers helped stave off starvation.

“When I think back, it was like a land of Shangri-La,” says Gwich’in elder Calvin Tritt, of Arctic Village, in Alaska. “We ate natural food. It’s what keeps you warm. That’s how we survive.”

But warmer temperatures have changed all of this. A string of lakes that once speckled the land near Arctic Village have also dried up, reducing the habitat for muskrat; the food left behind by them is in turn eaten by caribou. Less muskrats means less food for the caribou. In recent years the caribou have avoided their traditional winter grounds. Some experts believe this may be linked to the increased forest fires and loss of lakes.

“I think the caribou are going to die out,” says Gwich’in hunter Jimmy John. “I think that’s beginning.”

In another kind of environment, on another continent are the Gamo People, who inhabit the tropical highlands of Ethiopia, considered one of the cradles of civilization.

In Doko Village, higher temperatures have disrupted rain cycles and threatened a local staple crop called enset, which is similar to the banana plant and provides food, medicine, material for clothing and also holds significant cultural value. Like seal, no part goes to waste. Generally, it is baked into a bread or fried as a dumpling. After childbirth, mothers eat its nutritious gelatin and after a death, mourners eat its roots, cut into pieces and boiled.

“Enset is used for everything,” says Gamo man Halimbe Soazol. “Fences, curtains, seat cushions, bags, string, rope, animal feed. We can’t think of our lives outside of enset.”

But a host of changes brought on by climate change have negatively affected the plant. Rains are irregular, arrive in the wrong season, and come too much or not enough. During times of drought, local grasses die off, which stresses livestock, which means there is less manure for fertilizing enset fields. Reduced rainfall also stunts the crop itself. Plants that do survive are weakened, and more prone to disease. Higher temperatures have also pushed the range of the plant higher up the mountains, spreading blight at lower elevations.

“In old times, there wouldn’t be rain during the dry season and in the rainy season we had rain,” says Gamo old timer Shagre Shano Shale. “These things have changed.”

The Zanskari people, who dwell in the tiny village of Kumik, in the foothills of the Himalayas, in northern India rely on spring snowmelt to fill the stream that flows through the valley in which they live. But in the last century rising temperatures have led to erratic snowfall. More precipitation falls in the form of rain, and less snow means earlier spring melts. By the end of summer the stream running through Kumik is dry. “Without water,” says on Zanskari schoolteacher, “there is no life.”

The words of Kumik elder Ishay Paldan could also be the words of an Inuit elder: “When I was a child there was no problem…the glacier was much bigger, it used to snow much more.”

The Inuit of Canada do have their own spot in the exhibit.

A video from Cambridge Bay shows community members building a traditional kayak and features traditional Inuit throat singing. Elders reflect on how things have changed in their lifetime. “Food is less tastier than when I was growing up,” says one woman.

“It’s not the end of the world yet,” explains Gwich’in elder Sarah James, in a display at the beginning of the exhibit. “One thing we have to do is gain back respect for the animals, for all nature. We need to pray and give thanks to everything that we use…we need to find balance.”

On Oct. 4 you can follow Conversation With the Earth’s symposium, “Seeking Balance: Indigenous Knowledge, Western Science and Climate Change,” at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C, which will include input from indigenous partners, as well as scientists. You can follow this on a live webcast on Oct. 4, from 9 a.m to 6 p.m. EST on USTREAM.