The Melting Ice Cellar

Abstract

Environmental problems have often been observed by Alaska Native communities decades before they have been confirmed by scientific research.

There are a lot of things happening. The weather has gotten warmer. The taste of the plants has changed. The fur is coming off the seals like they are molting but it is not molting time. We’re wondering if Chernobyl is responsible.

—Eric Iyapana

Little Diomede Island1

AS OBSERVERS OF THE natural world deeply connected to their environment, Alaska Native people possess a wealth of knowledge about the environment that often precedes scientific data collection by many years—even decades. Such is the case with the environmental effects of global warming, which may have untoward health effects for generations to come. As far back as the 1970s, Alaska Native communities reported changes we now know to be associated with global warming, such as changing weather patterns, thinning ice, diseased and deformed wildlife, and changes in the look and taste of such subsistence foods as fish and meat. These early observations have been borne out by scientific research conducted in recent years that has found significant environmental damage to Arctic regions, such as accidental releases of radioactivity, elevated levels of persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals, and ozone depletion.2

The environment and its resources provide more than just sustenance for Native communities. Harvesting, processing, and consuming native foods is a common practice in Alaska and provides an opportunity to practice and teach humility and spirituality. Native foods are as important to social well-being as they are to physical health. For Native communities, degradation of the environment is a threat to culture at its core.3

Concerned that the observations of Native people should not be dismissed as merely anecdotal, the Alaska Native Science Commission (ANSC) and the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), University of Alaska, Anchorage, approached the Environmental Protection Agency in 1996 and received a 3-year, $700 000 grant from the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air to fund the Traditional Knowledge and Contaminants project. Through this project, ANSC and ISER have begun the process of documenting Alaska Native observations about contaminants and environmental change. The goal of this project is to record traditional knowledge about environmental changes throughout the state, to consider the implications of this knowledge, and to promote a synthesis between traditional and scientific knowledge.

The project is based in the Native communities of Alaska and uses traditional Native practices to discuss concerns, develop research agendas, and design solutions. Small grants are provided to enable communities to act on their priorities and to facilitate continued community education, training, sampling, and laboratory work. A mainstay of the project is its Traditional Knowledge and Native Foods Database, which documents Native observations and provides ongoing information and interaction among 368 Native communities in 7 regions (Northwest, Southeast, Interior, Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, West, South Central, and Arctic).

Environmental problems have often been observed by Alaska Native communities decades before they have been confirmed by scientific research. A hoped-for long-term effect of the Traditional Knowledge and Contaminants Project is to bridge the gap that currently exists between traditional knowledge and Western scientific practice so that these methodologies can work together to more effectively address environmental concerns in Alaska and globally.

WE’RE STILL HERE: HOW TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE WORKS

A variety of research methods will ultimately be needed to address environmental degradation in Native Alaskan communities. The strength of traditional knowledge (box below) is its goal of increasing community ownership and trust. This can contribute to the well-being and empowerment of Native communities and helps to ensure that people are invested in the process of observing and documenting the health of their environment on an ongoing basis.

The Traditional Knowledge and Contaminants project uses a community-based model, which begins with local observations of environmental and health effects. These observations lead to community-driven research, assessment within the context of community-driven values, and finally, community-based conclusions and action. This approach differs dramatically from the scientific model, which begins by analyzing contaminant sources and pathways; proceeds to scientific research, assessment, and conclusions; and then asks for community response.

In designing the project, researchers did not presume to know what subject areas would be important to Native communities. Questions drawn from earlier interactions with tribes are used to stimulate thinking and are presented at regional meetings.

Participants are asked to address the environmental changes affecting Native foods and human health, the sources of these changes, and whether radionuclides or other contaminants may be involved. Participants discuss ways of supporting community action and documenting and accessing traditional knowledge.4

Figure.

The Native worldview is a holistic one, in which one cannot discuss the air without talking about water, people, and wildlife. Traditional knowledge is passed down directly from individual to individual, through songs, stories, and recounting of dreams. Sometimes it is preserved in artifacts handed from father to son or mother to daughter. In keeping with these practices, the Traditional Knowledge and Contaminants project is based in Native worldview and protocols and uses traditional methods to collect information and engage participants. Through every stage of the project, researchers and community members gather at regional meetings, where information is shared and recorded.

HOW DO NATIVE PEOPLE DEFINE TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE?

• It is practical common sense based on teachings and experiences passed on from generation to generation.

• It is knowing the country. It covers knowledge of the environment—snow, ice, weather, resources—and the relationships between things.

• It is holistic. It cannot be compartmentalized and cannot be separated from the people who hold it. It is rooted in the spiritual health, culture, and language of the people. It is a way of life.

• Traditional knowledge is an authority system. It sets out the rules governing the use of resources—respect, an obligation to share. It is dynamic, cumulative and stable. It is truth.

• Traditional knowledge is a way of life. . . . It is using the heart and the head together. It comes from the spirit in order to survive.

• It gives credibility to the people.

Source. Alaska Native Science Commission Web site.5

Figure.

Below: Racks of sockeye salmon drying, Bristol Bay Area

The regional meetings take place in a traditional “talking circle” format. Though this practice has been much imitated in popular culture, it is in fact unique to indigenous cultures and takes years to master. The basic rules that apply to the talking circle include respect for confidentiality, respect for each person in the circle, and the opportunity for each person to speak without interruption or comment.4^(p8–9)

Figure.

Mt. Verstovia and Crescent Harbor, Sitka

Traditional knowledge is equated with survival itself, as community members pass down to others the knowledge and practices that help them manage their environment. “The proof,” says one Nome resident, “is in the fact that we are still here.”

THE ALASKA TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND NATIVE FOODS DATABASE

The Traditional Knowledge and Contaminants Project database is composed of approximately 2000 entries from more than 400 participants representing 150 communities. It is updated at yearly regional meetings and as requested by individuals or communities at any time. Because many villages cannot effectively access the Internet, the database was designed to work on individual computers. To avoid requiring Native villages to purchase special software, it was designed to run on its own compiled version of Microsoft Access and Visual Basic.

The database provides community members as well as government and university researchers an ongoing forum where they can record their observations and read what others have written across a range of categories including global warming, abnormalities in subsistence foods, concerns about human health effects, the impact of commercial activities, and changes in the ecosystem. The database serves as a pivotal component of the project, enabling communities to share observations and learn about initiatives taken by others to address environmental issues. In this way, the database acts as a feedback loop, informing and inspiring communities and strengthening resolve.

The Traditional Knowledge Web site acts as a resource that provides help with grant proposals, education, and training and enables community members to act on their concerns.6,7 Projects funded through the project’s Community Small Grants Program include a program to test river and drinking water for contaminants and parasites in the Native village of Buckland; training by Clarks Point Village Council to teach youths how to collect samples and monitor water temperature to analyze defects found in salmon; and an initiative to sustain the traditional lifestyle of people in the Native village of Koyuk by having elders lead hunts and traditional food gathering as well as teach the Inupiaq language (G. Nothstine [gnothstine@aknsc.org], project coordinator, ANSC; e-mail; May 2002).

SCIENCE RESPONDS

As the Traditional Knowledge project has evolved, participants have voiced the need to learn more about the underlying causes of the health effects and environmental changes they’ve observed and how they can take action to restore their environment.

In response, project organizers compiled a summary based on the Canadian Northern Contaminants Program contribution to the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), considered to be the “best single source” of relevant research-based knowledge.8 AMAP’s “Arctic Pollution Issues: A State of the Arctic Environment Report,”3 based on input from hundreds of scientific experts from the Arctic countries and the United States and from indigenous peoples’ organizations and international organizations, corroborates environmental problems and health effects that Alaska Native people have been observing for years and emphasizes the need for collaboration between the scientific and indigenous communities.

The report culminated in the International Symposium on Environmental Pollution of the Arctic, held in Tromsø, Norway, in June 1997. Participants called attention to such worrisome problems as increased levels of heavy metals, high levels of persistent organic pollutants, and the effects of radioactive fallout, ozone depletion, and climate change. They emphasized that contaminants must be considered in the context of other factors affecting indigenous peoples and urged communication with and participation of Arctic indigenous peoples in research and projects.2

THE GAP BETWEEN TRADITIONAL AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

Traditional knowledge can provide scientists with more accurate and timely hypotheses to use in their search for the causes of declines in wildlife, saving time, money, effort, and undue delay in action (P. L. Cochran, unpublished manuscript, 2002). It can provide an early warning system for emergent biological or environmental trends and anomalies. There are many examples of Natives making the first observations of significant changes in wildlife populations and environmental conditions; for example, Inupiat and Yupik peoples reported changing weather patterns, thinning ice, and changes in sea ice drift patterns some 30 years before scientists published data indicating that thinning sea ice might be related to global warming (P. L. Cochran, unpublished manuscript, 2002).

Although it is evident that there is a deep correlation between what communities observe and what science can prove, Western-based science has had little success in the past decade accessing and using Alaska Native traditional knowledge and science.

Figure.

Far right: Three generations of Gwich'in Athabaskan women

Henry Huntington, who has combined traditional knowledge and scientific research in his studies of the bowhead whale, notes the reluctance of scientific researchers to depart from more established research methods. He also notes language barriers between Native and scientific researchers and the difficulty of accessing traditional knowledge, which is rarely written down.9

Figure.

There are other reasons for this division, most stemming from inadequate education and a resulting distrust on the part of both the scientific and Native communities. Scientific researchers normally use trial-and-error approaches to cross-cultural collaboration, with little understanding of the cultural underpinnings of traditional knowledge; many scientists and policymakers do not understand what traditional knowledge is and are skeptical about its practical use. Similarly, Alaska Natives are skeptical about scientific motivations and thus do not cooperate, or cooperate fully, with researchers.

Alaska Natives are rarely involved in the development of collaborative research projects or in the actual research effort. When they are involved, there is often no recognition of their role in the research process. Further, collaborators from Native communities are rarely paid, or paid equitably. Alaska Native elders, potential key informants, do not speak English fluently; they may not speak it at all. Even when an elder speaks English, the researcher may not know the cultural communication protocols, which can diminish the quality of any information exchange. Finally, there is limited funding for use of traditional knowledge or for researchers to engage in cross-cultural awareness and communication orientation programs (P. L. Cochran, unpublished manuscript, 2002).

Understanding traditional knowledge and how it differs from nonindigenous methodology is an important basis for determining how to use it. Knowing what it contains and how it is acquired and held is fundamental to being able to make good use of this information and encourage all participants to be aware of the added value it will bring.

One of the major obstacles to use of traditional knowledge is the inability of the researcher to determine the reliability of the information. Scientists are often unfamiliar with cultural validation protocols and uncertain as to whether information is of local, regional, or ecosystemwide importance. A formalized system of information sharing would eliminate this primary obstacle to use of traditional knowledge in scientific research.

Huntington cites a number of ways in which research scientists and Native communities can better collaborate. One is the “semidirective interview,” which can enable researchers to gather unanticipated but important pieces of information by using a conversational style rather than a more pointed question-and-answer format. For example, when Huntington interviewed a group of Alaska Natives about beluga whales,

[d]iscussions in one group interview suddenly turned to the increasing population of beaver in the region. I was caught off guard. . . . Seeing my confusion, one of the elders then explained why beaver were relevant to beluga: the beaver dam streams where some salmon spawn, reducing salmon habitat, and thus potentially affecting the abundance and distribution of the salmon on which the beluga feed.9

Other methods for bringing scientists and Native communities together include use of questionnaires, which can help obtain quantifiable information and which may be more comfortable for some respondents; analytical workshops, in which scientists and holders of traditional knowledge can together analyze known data and better understand each other’s perspectives; and collaborative field work, which offers the opportunity to interact outside the laboratory or meeting room for extended periods of time.9

Traditional knowledge can have a significant impact on many aspects of public health research; however, a systematic process for use and access of this information is required first. This process must deal with, among other things, communication and information exchange protocols, dispute resolution, appropriate use of information, protocols for attribution of sources, compensation for research collaborators, community relations, and cross-cultural communications and awareness training.

Figure.