Local Environment The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability Old ways for new days: Australian Indigenous peoples and climate change Old ways for new days: Australian Indigenous peoples and climate change (original) (raw)
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Despite growing global attention to the development of strategies and policy for climate change adaptation, there has been little allowance for input from Indigenous people. In this study we aimed to improve understanding of factors important in integration of Yolngu perspectives in planning adaptation policy in North East Arnhem Land (Australia). We conducted workshops and in-depth interviews in two ‘communities’ to develop insight into Yolngu peoples’ observations and perspectives on climate change, and their ideas and preferences for adaptation. All participants reported observing changes in their ecological landscape, which they attributed to mining, tourism ‘development’, and climate change. ‘Strange changes’ noticed particularly in the last five years, had caused concern and anxiety among many participants. Despite their concern about ecological changes, participants were primarily worried about other issues affecting their community’s general welfare. The results suggest that strategies and policies are needed to strengthen adaptive capacity of communities to mitigate over-arching poverty and well-being issues, as well as respond to changes in climate. Participants believed major constraints to strengthening adaptive capacity had external origins, at regional, state and federal levels. Examples are poor communication and engagement, top-down institutional processes that allow little Indigenous voice, and lack of recognition of Indigenous culture and practices. Participants’ preferences for strategies to strengthen community adaptive capacity tended to be those that lead towards greater self-sufficiency, independence, empowerment, resilience and close contact with the natural environment. Based on the results, we developed a simple model to highlight main determinants of community vulnerability. A second model highlights components important in facilitating discourse on enhancing community capacity to adapt to climatic and other stressors
Energy Research & Social Science, 2018
Significant research attention has been given to understanding the entanglements of culture and climate change in Indigenous communities for global and Australian contexts. Although there is a growing body of knowledge on the threats and vulnerabilities posed by climate change to Indigenous peoples and cultures, there is only modest substantive research on the ways that Australian Aboriginal people in remote, arid-zone communities observe, understand, experience, and act upon the changing climate. This paper emphasises the importance of place-based research methods for understanding local social and cultural processes in a research project which investigated Aboriginal understandings and responses to climate change in the interior, arid Upper Georgina River Basin (UGRB) in North West Queensland, Australia. The study used a multidisciplinary and mixed-method approach, including a modified national climate change survey. Based on this survey methodology, a distinctive geographic and Indigenous focus shaped the study on public risk perceptions, understandings, and responses to climate change. This study recognises the crucial importance of identifying, measuring and documenting important changes and impacts taking place in the human landscape as only this kind of attention will insure that remote regional communities are coping with the environmental stressors and challenges of the Anthropocene.
Future Change in Ancient Worlds: Indigenous Adaptation in Northern Australia
Northern Australia is highly exposed to a number of natural hazards including: cyclones and associated storm surges, riverine and flash flooding, heatwaves, coastal erosion, bushfires and drought – some of which might be exacerbated by climate change. With an approximate population of 160,000 Indigenous people (29% of the total Indigenous population of Australia) it is critical to develop a multifaceted understanding of how climate change will affect Indigenous communities in northern Australia. Moreover, decisions about how to support Indigenous communities to adapt to and reduce their risks from climate change impacts must be informed by greater understandings of their current adaptive capacities, e.g. why they may be vulnerable or resilient, how they have coped with and adapted to past environmental changes, who is likely to leave, stay or return, and how sustainable communities can be maintained. This report examines the underlying vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities and population movements of Indigenous people in four communities in northern Australia – Broome in Western Australia; Maningrida and Ngukurr in the Northern Territory; and Wujal Wujal in Queensland. The report addresses the following research questions: How and why are Indigenous people in northern Australia vulnerable? How and why are Indigenous people in northern Australia resilient? How do specific populations differ in terms of their current resilience and adaptive capacity to slow onset changes and extreme weather events? What role does population movement have as an adaptive response to climate change? What changes are needed to enable Indigenous communities to enhance their resilience and adaptive capacities for future extreme weather events and other impacts of climate change? To address these questions, the following four research approaches were taken: Demographic history and population volatility – An analysis of population volatility, using demographic variables such as age and sex distributions, mobility and migration, and population density. It is believed that communities with excessive population volatility are likely to experience more dramatic disruption as a result of environmental changes. Land use planning as climate change adaptation – An examination of the role that land use planning and development controls play in creating disasterresilient communities. This was conducted by comparing the land use planning legislation, state-level planning policies, statutory planning schemes, property registration systems and emergency management systems in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia. Indigenous views of change and risk – An ethnographic and qualitative study of the relationship that individuals and communities have with their everchanging environment. The investigation examined Indigenous views of change and risk, as well as the broader socioeconomic and political circumstances that impact on their underlying vulnerabilities and capacities to adapt. Children’s understanding of weather and seasons in Broome – A qualitative investigation of children’s perceptions to provide a more holistic understanding of how changes in weather and climate affect the younger members of the community.
Journal of Water and Climate Change, 2015
Climate change directly threatens Indigenous cultures and livelihoods across Australia's Murray-Darling Basin (MDB). Using a modified grounded theory methodology, this study draws on in-depth interviews with Indigenous leaders and elders across the MDB to highlight that climate variability and over-extraction of water resources by agricultural users directly threatens the integrity of aquatic systems. As a consequence, Indigenous cultures and livelihoods reliant on these natural systems are at risk. Interviewees identify a range of systemic barriers that entrench vulnerability of Indigenous Peoples (IPs) in the MDB. Building on insights from the literature and from interviews, a Recognition, Empowerment and Devolution (RED) framework is developed to establish possible pathways to support climate adaptation by rural IPs. Fundamental to this RED framework is the need for non-Indigenous socio-institutional structures to create a 'space' to allow IPs the ability to adapt in their own ways to climate impacts.
Global Environmental Change, 2013
We examine a community-based project to record indigenous knowledge.We explore how indigenous knowledge informs individuals’ values and choices.Worldviews shape how people perceive and respond to climate change.Indigenous knowledge informs the acceptability of adaptation options.Indigenous peoples offer alternative knowledge about climate variability and change based on their own locally developed knowledges and practices of resource use. In this article we discuss the role of traditional ecological knowledge in monitoring and adapting to changing environmental conditions. Our case study documents a project to record the seasonal knowledge of the Miriwoong people in northern Australia. The study demonstrates how indigenous groups’ accumulate detailed baseline information about their environment to guide their resource use and management, and develop worldviews and cultural values associated with this knowledge. We highlight how traditional ecological knowledge plays a critical role in mediating indigenous individuals and communities’ understandings of environmental changes in the East Kimberley region of north-west Australia, and how these beliefs may influence future decision-making about how to go about adapting to climate change at a local level.