In the Arctic, Ice is Life...and It's Disappearing Fri, 11 Feb 2000 21:29:03 -0500 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - nativeamericas@cornell.edu The following article is provided from Native Americas' special-issue on "Global Warming, Climate Change and Native Lands." Published by the Akwe:kon Press at Cornell University's American Indian Program, Native Americas Journal keeps you informed of issues and events that impact indigenous communities throughout the hemisphere. You can find more information on this topic, as well as how to subscribe to Native Americas on our website at http://nativeamericas.aip.cornell.edu. In the Arctic, Ice is Life...And it's Disappearing By Fidel Moreno/Native Americas Journal (c) Copyright 2000 Last November in Albuquerque, N.Mex., Native leaders, elders, researchers, and community members from throughout Indian Country were brought together with some of the leading NASA scientists and researchers to discuss local, regional and global climate changes and to listen to Native experiences and observations. At the "Circles of Wisdom" Native Peoples/Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop, Caleb Pungowiyi, a Yupik Native from Nome, Alaska was among the presenters. Pungowiyi, the director of natural resources with Kawerak, Inc., and a member of the Qewami clan, addressed the impact of climate change in the Arctic region and the effects on Native peoples. Fidel Moreno, a Yaqui/Huichol writer, interviewed many of the conference participants. Native Americas has excerpted Moreno's interview with Pungowiyi here. Native Americas: Caleb, you come from a community that survives by the ocean. Tell us more about your life there. Caleb Pungowiyi: The village I come from, Savoonga, is a very small community of about 500 people. Savoonga means the land where the water is squeezed out of it. We primarily live off of resources from the sea. We are a small island, harvesting seals, walrus, polar bear, whales, and other food from the sea such as salmon, trout, whitefish, and other fish. Before the white man came, we had about 20 communities on the island that we could identify. Then when the whalers came in the 1800s, and started decimating whales and walruses in the Bering Sea, it had a dramatic impact on our people. Between 1880 and 1881, 80 percent to 90 percent of the people starved on our island. Today our village is a very modern community in terms of modern housing, water and sewer, electricity, television, telephone, etc., although our only means of transportation in and out of the community is by air since we are not connected to the mainland. NA: How does your community sustain itself? CP: Most people depend on sealskin products, carvings, slippers, jackets, mittens. Many people are very skilled artists and make things like dolls, figurines, sculptures. NA: What are some of the changes that your community is experiencing in terms of the water, the land, the air? What changes are you seeing as a result of global climate change? CP: Our community has seen real dramatic effects as a result of the warming that is occurring in the Arctic Ocean and the Arctic environment. In the springtime we are seeing the ice disappearing faster, which reduces our hunting time for walrus, seals, and whales. The ice freezes later. Ice is a supporter of life. It brings the sea animals from the north into our area and in the fall it also becomes an extension of our land. When it freezes along the shore, we go out on the ice to fish, to hunt marine mammals, and to travel. Ice is a very important element in our lives. We see ice in different ways. When the quality of ice, in other words, its hardness, its durability, and our ability to walk on it, hunt on it, changes, then it affects our lives. And it affects the animals too. They depend on the ice for breeding, forpupping, denning, lying, and having their young. They molt on it, they migrate on it. And so ice is a very important element to us. When it starts disintegrating and disappearing faster, it affects our lives dramatically. Ice forms in two ways: one from the cold air from the top and in the fall time when the Earth cools, it forms on the bottom of the ocean in the shallow areas. This ice that forms on the bottom of the ocean carries with it sand, mud, sediment, and nutrients from the bottom of the ocean. In the springtime, when this ice starts melting, these nutrients are food for the shrimp and other plankton and species in the ocean. So it is a cycle that creates the productivity of the Bering Sea. Now with the water so warm, the ice doesn't form on the bottom like it used to. Now it is forming from the top and reduces the productivity of the ocean. It has tremendous impact. NA: What is causing the disintegration, the meltdown of ice? CP: To us, it is warming. There is no doubt the cause of the ice disintegrating and the changes that we see in the Arctic are caused by global warming. The exact cause is probably debatable, but it is most likely a result of emissions from the developed countries; the greenhouse gases that are being emitted into the air are causing the Earth to warm up. But nobody has a silver bullet and nobody will step forward and say we have to do something about it. The causes of the disintegration of ice are the warm water and warm temperatures; whether it is global warming or local warming, we're feeling the effects of what is happening with the warming trend. While the effects we're seeing today are dramatic on our people in the present, the effects for our future generations are going to be much greater. When I mention that the ice melts earlier, in the springtime, in March, when the seals are having their pups, and the ice breaks up, their pups will not be fully weaned so a lot of them will starve and will not be fully developed. Twenty years from now, we'll see a reduction in animals because that generation of pups will not reproduce. We'll see a major reduction in seals that we depend upon. So our future generations will feel a major impact as a result of what's happening today. It will be felt in 20 years. NA: When you were growing up did you hear your elders talk about what changes were coming? Did they talk about those changes, could they see the changes coming? CP: I think my father and his father saw some of the changes that were coming. We had prophets like any other group around the world. Some of the other Inuit people have talked about the seven disasters that will happen to the Eskimo people. We have experienced four of them. We have three more to go that are not yet identified as to what they are going to be. The first one was a flood. The second was the Ice Age, when the world froze. The third one was starvation that our people encountered. The fourth one was the diseases that our people died from, diseases that the white man brought. The [next] three-we don't know what they are going to be. But we know they are awaiting and will eventually come around. NA: Is there something positive that can happen to avert the disasters? Something that can be changed? CP: The seven disasters are warnings of things that are going to happen to our people. Whether we can avert them, I don't know. We can only try to prepare for them. For example, with the global warming, as part of our preparations for the effects, in our region we're collecting samples from seals, from walruses and whales. We're collecting blubber and skin, reproductive tracts, and teeth. We're having some of these tested for contaminants and pollutants. We're looking at the reproductive tracts for their productivity of the animals in the event that in the future there are changes in the animals, we'll be able to tell these changes. With the teeth we're looking at the age samples, so that if there is a change in the age structure in the animals, in the future, we can go back and look at the samples of today and examine the changes. We are also collecting baseline harvest data. How much people are catching, what sex, what age group, so that we can compare it to the future catches. Same thing with the fish. If there are changes we will be able to take a look at the changes that are occurring. NA: What is the significance of this conference having brought together scientists, federal agency people with Native people? And what do you think can come of this? CP: The significance of our gathering is very important. We are trying to tie in scientific data with what we, as permanent residents in the Arctic, are experiencing. If the Arctic should melt, our people are not going to move south, or someplace else where it is easier to live, because this is our homeland. This is something we are going to have to live with. So by gathering what we know, what we observe, it will help the scientists and us understand the changes that are occurring and help to mitigate or address the problems that are going to be brought forth by global warming. NA: As a result of this process, do you think the science community is arriving at the same findings and understanding that Native people have known for so long? CP: Science is very exacting. You have to have positive proof of what is causing this occurrence. If you don't have a silver bullet that says this is what is causing this change, they are not going to say, I'll put my Ph.D. on what is causing this warming. Science is limiting. We are feeling the effects and we need to work with that. The other problem that we're seeing is an economic impact. I was in Greenland last summer and one of the presenters said, 'If you can't show that your economy is impacted in taxes or in government labor statistics, it doesn't exist.' And that's how we are. Our subsistence economy, living off of seals, gathering of plants, is nonexistent. If there was a disaster today and the seals died, a lot of the birds died and plants were gone, the government is not going to say, 'We are going to come and help you.' Unless I was a commercial fisherman or a tour operator who can show economic loss, [the loss] doesn't exist. I cannot get economic help from the government because I cannot prove the loss. These are some of the things that we need to address. We have to get the government and the state to recognize that [subsistence] is an economy that we live off of. NA: What do you think will happen if the science community does not work with Native people to understand the impact of these changes? CP: I don't know if the science community is the decisive [factor]. It is the politicians, administrators, and the leaders that are going to decide how to address some of the problems that are occurring. Science can definitely play a role, but many times scientists will not become political. They will not go to Congress or policy makers and say this is our finding and this is what you should do and here is how to do it. We need to make that connection between the findings of the scientific community and the policy makers to make those changes. NA: Why should the public, why should science, why should federal agencies listen to Native people about what is happening in the communities and the changes we are seeing in the Earth? CP: The scientists and the leaders of our countries need to listen to us because, as Native peoples, we are the ones that live the closest to the land, to Mother Earth. We live with it, we experience it, with our hearts and souls, and we depend upon it. When this Earth starts to be destroyed, we feel it. We have to do something before it is too late. We can't wait until the economic community of the world is destroyed and we finally come to our senses. If we don't do something now, that economy is going to be impacted in an even greater way further down the road. It is something that needs to be done now. The world has to address the problem now in order to avert a future disaster. NA: If you could give a message to the Native youth, or all young people, what would you tell them? CP: The message that I would send to young people in terms of the impacts of future problems associated with global warming would be to keep passing on our knowledge, our values associated with nature, the love for Mother Earth, and protection of the environment. The other day I talked to my kids about some of the things that I feel are occurring and it seems to go in one ear and out the other. But then I think back to my youth, and my father talked to me and taught me. I think my father felt the same way, that it all went in one ear and out the other and that I didn't learn anything. But when I think back, I value those things that I was told. Whether we think they are listening or not, we need to keep telling the younger generation about our values, our beliefs, and how we need to protect the environment. They'll pick it up. There is no doubt in my mind that the younger generation will continue with the things that we believe in. NA: What would you tell other Native people about what you have experienced in the north and what might we do as communities of indigenous peoples? CP: You need to work on your own people and your own communities and with the scientific community to make sure that your community is going to be assured of its future. In many ways our people are going to be the ones that are going to be the Green Belt. We will probably be the last ones to have the last green areas remaining on the Earth in the future because of all the development in other areas. And we should continue to hold our values. We treasure nature and it shows in our Native lands. When it comes to development,we have, for the most part, been very cautious about how we developed the land and our resources. And I think that this is something our Indian brothers should continue to do. NA: Do you think the government will hear what Native people have to say? It seems like if we don't remember the lessons of the past, we are condemned to repeat them. CP: I think the United States government, if it wants to be a leader in the world, in terms of convincing other countries of the problems associated with global warming, they need to listen to the First Peoples who have the closest relationship with the Earth, who are feeling the effects. We can be a useful resource for the government to send this message to the rest of the world saying, 'Hey, we have got to do something. It is already happening and we have to do something in order to protect the future of our world.' Fidel Moreno, Yaqui/Huichol, is director of Native Visions Media Arts Center and president of the American Indian Chamber of Commerce of New Mexico. "Nowhere else will you be able to find such powerful-knowledge filled writing." ...Wilma Mankiller, Editorial Board Member of Native Americas Journal Native Americas Journal Akwe:kon Press American Indian Program Cornell University 450 Caldwell Hall Ithaca, NY 14853-2602 Tel. (607) 255-4308 Subs. (800) 9-NATIVE Fax. 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