Table 2.

Indigenous and traditional views on ocean mitigation and adaptation

There was no part of the world’s Ocean where traditional and Indigenous peoples did not travel, visit or know about. Even Antarctic waters were visited by the Maori centuries before European exploration of the ocean (Mustonen et al. in prep; Hulbe et al. 2010). This has also included gendered understandings of the sea, where Indigenous women have had a special access and knowledge of their own, such as on Haida Gwaii, on the Western coast of Canada (see Fischer et al. 2020). Today when climate change is altering the seas at large we can try to discern some aspects of climate change mitigation and adaptation questions from the viewpoint of Indigenous and local or traditional knowledge and wisdom. These knowledges have baselines and understandings of the ocean of which only a fraction has ever been seen outside of these worlds. The past 500 years of marine governance built on the dominion and greed by European settler powers has resulted in immense collapse of fish stocks, whale and marine mammal species, and other ecosystems across the planet (Díaz et al. 2019). No part of the ocean is unaffected by this legacy and on-going expansionist use of the seas (Jouffray et al. 2020). Central to this process has been the loss of traditional governance of the seas, a transfer of power from the hands of the traditional owners, users and maritime nations of the Indigenous and traditional peoples into supra-entities and also unregistered fleets, corporations and organisations that take advantage of the “Freedom of the Seas” for their unsustainable uses. Climate change affects marine areas in a range of system altering ways, including but not limited to warmer waters, loss of coral reefs and habitats, alterations to ocean currents, species on the move, unsafe travel at sea, unpredictable weather events, loss of resources both on the coasts and at sea, and a range of intertwined events and processes as a part of this regime shift. We can therefore ask critically what and how can Indigenous and traditional maritime peoples do in the context of mitigation and adaptation whilst having lost most of their previous global-wide access to the sea and her resources. A central answer is a return to Indigenous rights and title to the sea where possible, leaving sea and coastal areas to recover and reform in the new normal and support rewilding and restoration work where possible (Fischer et al 2020). Central to these actions are issues of power, equity and resources and lack thereof (see Ogier et al 2020). If settler and global powers are serious in their commitment to help Indigenous and traditional communities to mitigate harm from global climate change and adapt to the new realities, they need to form a new relationship with the sea and her peoples (Frainer et al. 2020). Some actions can be taken. The first strategic action to take across the global coastal and marine environments is to operationalise an Indigenous-science guided pause in development and industrial use of marine resources, to allow ecosystems to rebuild, re-connect and re-organise themselves in this new normal. This can come in the form of ratifying The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), inclusion of Indigenous rights at the national EEZ level, and actively supporting Indigenous participation in international for a such as UN processes, including more inclusive participation in the production of IPCC reports. On a tactical level, some actions may be suggested. They should be always tailored to the local context and priorities in a co-governance manner in order to reach long-lasting solutions. For food security priorities, quotas should be given to the small-scale fleets and Indigenous harvesters (Farmery et al. 2021) as many issues result from industrial scale gear and associated by-catch issues. For anadromous fish, e.g. Atlantic Salmon, that migrate from the ocean to freshwatersto spawn, ecological restoration and conservation of Indigenous-owned catchment areas has proved a partial success in the European North (Brattland and Mustonen 2018). At the coasts, use of Indigenous knowledge and science can stimulate restoration efforts (Goldman 2019) supporting resilience (Jones et al. 2017). For heavily hit communities such as low-lying island nations and sea ice-dependent Bering Sea communities in Alaska (e.g. Shismaref, Unalakleet, and Kotzebue), use of large-scale adaptation ranging from large international aid programs through to re-location of whole communities is needed urgently.