‘‘It’s so different today’’: Climate change and indigenous lifeways in British Columbia, Canada

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‘‘It’s so different today’’: Climate change and indigenous lifeways in British Columbia, Canada

Nancy J. Turner

^a,

*, Helen Clifton

^b

aSchool of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3060, STN CSC Victoria, B.C., Canada

bGitga’at Nation, Hartley Bay, B.C., Canada

1. Introduction

‘‘People are saying they are seeing robins. They don’t even know what to do with this weather!’’ (Helen Clifton, pers. comm., 2003).

All over the world, including across Canada, Indigenous and local peoples have noted recent changes in weather patterns and have observed their effects on species’ life cycles, productivity and interrelationships. These changes are difﬁcult to document systematically because they are diverse, and play out over different scales of time and space. Nevertheless, the general consensus is that change is occurring, and everywhere people are concerned and anxious about its effects on the plants and animals they continue to rely upon (Krupnik and Jolly, 2002; Ashford and Castleden, 2001; Anonymous, 2001;Prince Albert Grand Council, 2005; Spittlehouse, 2005; Harris et al., 2006). Global climate change is predicted to be most pronounced in far northern ecosystems (Maxwell, 1992; Oechel et al., 1997). However, British Columbia (BC), a temperate-to-northern region (latitude 49–608N) with high climatic variability related to its coastline and its mountainous terrain, is also at considerable risk.

Indigenous Peoples have occupied what is now British Columbia and neighbouring areas for over 10,000 years, developing many distinctive and successful lifeways through use of local

resources and adaptation to the landscapes and environments in which they have resided. Over 30 distinct language groups are recognized in British Columbia alone. Over the millennia, these people have developed special technologies, modes of transporta- tion, lifestyles, social organization, and, notably, ways of modifying and managing their environments and populations of plant and animal species within their territories (Deur and Turner, 2005;

Turner and Berkes, 2006). Although their lives changed dramati- cally with the arrival of the Europeans to the region in the late 1700s, many communities have continued a signiﬁcant portion of their original food harvesting and other cultural practices up to the present. First Nations in British Columbia and Aboriginal peoples of Canada in general hold distinct Aboriginal and treaty rights protected by the Constitution Act of 1982, including an inherent, but relatively undeﬁned, right to self-government (Canada, Government of 1982). Nevertheless, indigenous Canadians, like indigenous Australians and many other indigenous populations worldwide, remain vulnerable to poor socioeconomic conditions, with relatively poor health and nutritional status, high unemploy- ment, cyclical poverty and low levels of education (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 1996). The Aboriginal population in Canada is approximately 3–4% of the total Canadian population.

BC Indigenous Peoples rely strongly on anticipated seasonal abundance of particular resources, and depend on predictable rainfall, snowpack and montane glaciers to maintain critical habitat for Paciﬁc salmon and other important resource species.

Along the coast, people travel by boat and rely on their generations-old knowledge of weather patterns, ocean currents and tides to keep them safe on the water. Now, these features are changing, becoming less predictable, and people feel more A R T I C L E I N F O

Keywords:

Climate change Indigenous Peoples

Traditional Ecological Knowledge British Columbia

Adaptation Resilience

A B S T R A C T

Indigenous Peoples of British Columbia have always had to accommodate and respond to environmental change. Oral histories, recollections of contemporary elders, and terms in indigenous languages all reﬂect peoples’ responses to such change, especially since the coming of Europeans. Very recently, however, many people have noted signs of greater environmental change and challenges to their resilience than they have faced in the past: species declines and new appearances; anomalies in weather patterns; and declining health of forests and grasslands. These observations and perspectives are important to include in discussions and considerations of global climate change.

* Corresponding author.

E-mail address:[email protected](N.J. Turner).

Contents lists available atScienceDirect

Global Environmental Change

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / g l o e n v c h a

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2009.01.005

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vulnerable and at greater risk today, despite modern weather prediction methods, improved communication, and enhanced technologies.

With growing global recognition of climate change as a real, ongoing and accelerating phenomenon (IPCC, 2007), there is a need to understand what effects are anticipated, and how human societies may be able to adapt, gain resilience, and ameliorate the impacts on other lifeforms, while we grapple with the overall issue of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and heading off large- scale disaster in the coming years.

Turning for help and insight to Indigenous Peoples makes great sense. These are people who are long-term residents of a place, who have learned through systems of knowledge, practice and belief to conserve, maintain and promote their resourcesin situ(cf.

Anderson, 2005; Deur and Turner, 2005; Turner and Berkes, 2006), and who have developed a capability for resilience (a capacity to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change).

Notably, people who have lived for generations in constantly changing environments, such as along coastlines, or who venture into remote, diverse mountain habitats, are likely to have the most robust strategies for facing unusual circumstances, and, in the event that these occur, are less likely to be taken by surprise than those used to constancy and predictability in their lives.

This paper discusses adaptations to environmental change in the history of BC Indigenous Peoples, beginning with a brief note about the approach we take and the nature of Traditional Ecological Knowledge systems. It then examines indigenous knowledge relating to weather and environments. Thirdly, it addresses the importance of considering Traditional Ecological Knowledge and observations in assessing and coping with climate change, and ﬁnally, using three case examples, it suggests ways in which indigenous knowledge can be appropriately recognized and incorporated into strategies for adapting to and reversing climate change.

2. Our approach

In this paper we focus on personal experiences, knowledge and observations of Helen Clifton, an Elder of the Gitga’at (Coast Tsimshian) Nation of Hartley Bay, British Columbia (Fig. 1), and other members of the Gitga’at and neighbouring communities, as documented over the past 8 years of collaborative, participatory ethnoecological research on environments and indigenous knowledge conducted by Nancy Turner and colleagues (Turner and

Thompson, 2006; Turner et al., 2008). Over this time, observing and living with anomalies in weather, animal behaviour and overall environmental health, and the impacts of these factors on her peoples’ ability to harvest the food they need and to carry out cultural activities, have been primary and ongoing concerns of Helen Clifton. Here, we attempt to place her concerns in the broader context of resource use, and of Indigenous Peoples’

knowledge and experience of environmental change – most notably climate change – in British Columbia and beyond.

Helen Clifton’s knowledge is part of a collective body of knowledge, or knowledge system known as Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK; also Indigenous Environmental Knowledge). TEK is defined byBerkes (2008)as: ‘‘a cumulative body of knowledge, practice and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission’’ (see also Turner and Berkes, 2006; Turner et al., 2008). As well as specific and practical knowledge – for example of how to identify, harvest and process edible, medicinal and material plants – TEK embodies philosophical perspectives, as well as modes for transmission of information and worldviews. One can argue that TEK systems are value-laden, consisting of inextricably integrated observation, experience, beliefs and philosophies. In this sense they differ from scientific knowledge, for which striving for objectivity is a key element. Values and beliefs, however, can affect human behaviour, and hence, they may have a specific role to play in responses to climate change. For example, one concept that is widely recognized in indigenous worldviews has been termed ‘‘kincentric ecology’’

(Salmo´n, 2000; Senos et al., 2006). In this view, other lifeforms – both plant and animal – and even non-living entities such as the sun, mountains, waters and winds, are regarded as having human traits, and as being, in fact, our relatives: generous relatives who give of themselves so that humans may live. Such a concept can help human society in general to better understand the close connectivity between ourselves and the other lifeforms with whom we share the planet, and through this understanding may help shape our behaviour in a way that takes this other life and environmental entities essential to us into account. The concept of looking back and forward for seven generations in planning and decision-making, a practice widely accepted in the Mohawk TEK for example, is also a useful and relevant view in general considerations of climate change.

3. History of environmental change and resilience

Indigenous Peoples of northwestern North America have always had to accommodate and respond to environmental change. Archaeological and paleoecological records extending back over 10,000 years, as well as oral traditions, narratives, discourse and vocabulary, provide a picture of dynamic relationships between shifting ecosystems, human settlement, resource use and availability, and technological and social developments.

For example, pollen records show that western red-cedar (Thuja plicata), the most important tree for coastal First Nations and a source of many key materials – wood for canoes, houses, totem poles, boxes; bark for rooﬁng; inner bark for mats, baskets, clothing; and branches and roots for rope and baskets (Turner, 1998) – predominated in coastal forests only between 5000 and 2500 years ago, over 5000 years after people had settled in this region (Hebda and Mathewes, 1984). Sea level ﬂuctuations are another example of major changes that Indigenous Peoples have endured and accommodated in the past millennia; from Haida Gwaii to Vancouver Island, populations have lived with sea levels that are both higher (by as much as 100 m in some places) and lower (by 100–125 m or more at some points) than at present (Ames and Maschner, 1999; Fedje and Mathewes, 2005; Hebda and Rouse, 1979; McMillan, 1999; Natural Resources Canada, 2005).

Fig. 1.Gitga’at elder Helen Clifton, from Hartley Bay, British Columbia, hanging thin strips of halibut (wooks) to dry at the spring seaweed camp of K’yel, Princess Royal Island.

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Peoples’ responses to change have drawn on a wide range of strategies, from developing social and economic institutions for resource distribution (Berkes, 2008; Ommer and Turner, 2004), to relocating villages and camping places, to intensification of existing resources or adopting new ones (Peacock, 1998; Suttles, 1951; Ames, 2005). Retelling stories of floods, lava flows, advancing glaciers, or unusually long winters, keeps traumatic events alive in peoples’ minds (Ludwin et al., 2005a; BC Parks, 2000; Turner, 2005; Turner and Berkes, 2006).

Stories of ancient ﬂoods, for example, are widespread on the Northwest Coast (Ludwin et al., 2005b; Turner, 2005). Kwakwak- wa’wakw cultural and language specialist Daisy Sewid-Smith (Mayanilth) explained that her family’s ancestor, ts’eqamey’, survived a Great Flood not on the top of a mountain but within a colossal hollow western red-cedar (Sewid-Smith et al., 1998). It could be that the ﬂoods of legend are metaphorical but they may well be linked to actual natural catastrophes.

Ceremonies and artistic representations – dances, masks, totem poles – reenact events, reminding people of the dynamic nature of their environments and of the need for great care in using resources. Even within the lifetimes of contemporary elders or their recent ancestors, there have been events, such as great tidal waves, earthquakes, extreme weather situations, or volcanic eruptions that have impacted their lives unforgettably and to which they have had to respond and adapt (Hunn and Norton, 1984; Drabek and Adams, 2004; Cruikshank, 2005). Many of these untoward events have served to remind people of the fragility of their resources and the need for contingencies (cf.Shiva, 2005). For example, Nlaka’pmx elder Annie York was told by her grandaunt Josephine George of a famine time in the Fraser Canyon; the salmon were late in returning, and there were no deer:

. . .They had nothing, no ﬁsh, everything was scarce. . .So they

went up Broadback [Mountain]. . .to try to get up to where this sk’a´m’ets[glacier lily,Erythronium grandiﬂorum] may be. . .they went up there in the spring. . .. And the people that eatsha´kwu7 [cow-parsnip, Heracleum lanatum]. . . was the ones that survived. . .They’re very valuable food, when Indians had that ha´kwu7. . .. andtetu´wn’ [spring beauty,Claytonia lanceolata]. . . what they could dig out. . .survived. But the ones that didn’t eat them, they’re just trying to get a deer or something, then they died. . .. (Turner et al., 1990:32; see alsoTurner and Davis, 1993).

People have traditionally made accommodations for resource ﬂuctuations by turning to more easily accessed or predictable plant foods, even those less favoured, or to alternative species of ﬁsh or game. Trading is also a solution for localized scarcity; the Potlatch and other institutions such as marriage alliances facilitate such resource sharing (Turner and Davis, 1993; Ommer and Turner, 2004; Trosper, 2003).

More recently, people have again faced resource scarcity.

Pacheedaht hereditary Chief Charlie Jones, who lived to the age of 113, attributed his longevity to ‘‘proper food’’, including whale, seal, elk, deer, bear, beaver and salmon. ‘‘Now [as of his 110^th birthday in 1987], the rivers are ﬁshed out. . .There’s too much felling of forests, and the wild animals have been driven away’’

(Jones, 1987). His observations have been echoed over and over by other elders in different regions of the province (Jacks, 2000;

Thomas, 2001; Turner, 2005; Turner and Turner, 2008).

Other impacts and changes faced since the first Europeans arrived include: fire suppression – curtailing peoples’ ability to manage their landscapes through fire (Turner, 1999); over- exploitation of fisheries, forests and other resources; and replace- ment of native ecosystems with habitats dominated by plants and animals from Europe and Asia. Many of these impacts are cumulative, driven by the combined effects of several confounding

factors (Turner and Turner, 2008). Among these, climate change may be a key force, and one of the most difﬁcult to overcome.

Examples of environmental declines at least partially attributable to climate change effects include: dying western red-cedars on many parts of Vancouver Island, forests decimated by mountain pine beetle infestations, spruce budworm and other insect pests, notable decline in frog and other amphibian populations, and failure of eulachon runs in a number of rivers along the coast, especially the Kingcome and Bella Coola rivers (Hume, 2007;

Turner et al., in press).

Other occurrences possibly related to climate change include:

infestations of insects; diseases of trees or berry bushes [e.g., a widespread rust infection on Saskatoon berry (Amelanchier alnifolia) bushes and soapberries (Shepherdia canadensis) in the Chilcotin region in the summers of 2006 and 2008]; predominance or disappearance of particular species; unusual ﬂowering and fruiting of certain plants. For example, few berries ripened in the Hartley Bay area in 2001: ‘‘no salal, no pigeonberries, thimble- berries, crabapples, highbush cranberries, or wild currants, just none!¹’’ (Helen Clifton, pers. comm., 2001). Helen’s nephew at Kemano and relatives at Comox on Vancouver Island concurred, noting neither wild berries nor apples on their trees. Helen concluded that unseasonably heavy rains that spring had affected the bees that would normally pollinate the fruiting species.

Other anomalous conditions include: torrential ﬂoods and debris ﬂows from excess precipitation; excessively low levels of soil moisture and resulting compactness of the ground; shallow- ness of rivers and summertime drying up of creeks and ponds;

unusual summer and/or winter temperatures; algal blooms including red tides; and deteriorating condition of marine plants.

In this last instance, eelgrass (Zostera marina), has been observed by Kwakwaka’wakw elders to be less productive and less healthy (thinner and darker, with more epiphytic growth) than they remembered from 30 or 40 years ago. Observed changes in this traditional food plant may be due to warmer waters or to pollutants, or a combination of factors (Cullis-Suzuki, 2007).

A good example of social response to an environmental crisis, enacted generations ago in 1913 and 1914 by the Nlaka’pmx of the Fraser Canyon is when the Fraser River was blocked at one of its narrowest points, Hells Gate Canyon, by an immense landslide during construction of the Canadian Northern Railway. The slide impeded the biggest (fourth year) run of sockeye salmon migrating through to their spawning grounds. A group of Nlaka’pmx men, understanding the peril to all if the salmon were stopped, built a long rickety wooden ﬂume around the worst stretch of blockage.

Using dipnets they carefully captured the salmon and transported them in buckets and baskets to the ﬂumeway so they could proceed upriver. This concerted response saved the salmon run (Laforet and York, 1998; Hume, 2002; Turner, 2005).

People have continued to innovate in the face of change and surprise. The unseasonable rainfalls that have recently impacted the Gitga’at people’s ability to harvest and dry their seaweed and halibut in the month of May have prompted some creative solutions, for example, building outdoor shelters for cutting ﬁsh, and constructing variously designed trays and racks to enable the women to hang their spring salmon and halibut ‘‘wooks’’ over the stove for indoor drying (Fig. 2). Some people have taken advantage of freezers now available at the seaweed camp and run by portable generators, to freeze their seaweed enabling them to store it ‘‘wet’’, then sun-dry it when the weather improves (Turner, 2003).

As one Elder explained, ‘‘If Nature throws you a loop, you have to deal with that’’. In other words, one has to adjust to any unexpected occurrences, and ﬁnd ways of surviving despite the

1Scientiﬁc names:Gaultheria shallon,Cornus canadensis,Rubus parviﬂorus,Malus fusca,Viburnum edule, andRibes bracteosum, respectively.

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uncertainties. Relocating settlements, temporarily or permanently, developing and imposing restraints on harvesting certain resources, sharing resources from family to family or across communities, seeking alternative resources, developing and using new technologies, and developing economic and social alliances have all been responses of indigenous communities to environmental crises and, as such, all strategies reﬂecting resilience. In relation to climate change, perhaps even more important than responding to environmental crises, are the ‘‘soft’’ lessons that can anticipate and avert calamity, thus precluding the need for the

‘‘hard’’ lessons of drastic resource depletion or other undesirable outcomes of inaction (Turner and Berkes, 2006).

4. Indigenous peoples’ knowledge relating to weather Indigenous Peoples hold many different types of weather- and climate-related knowledge. Because of a complete dependence on ability to survive out on the lands and waters in all seasons of the year, and because so much of their food and other resources are seasonal, they are aware at any time of what to expect, and what anomalies exist. In March 2006, for example, Helen Clifton voiced Gitga’at concerns about effects of pollution from the sinking of the B.C. FerryQueen of the Northin their territory: ‘‘The herring are on the move!. . .The whales will be following the herring, and the salmon are coming, and the seals. The eulachon are about to start too.’’ ‘‘Fortunately,’’ she said, ‘‘the weather has been really good since the spill’’ [which occurred on March 22, 2006]. She noted that people converging on Hartley Bay after the accident would really get a wrong impression of what the weather is normally like; in this case, the unusually calm weather allowed some containment of the ship’s leaking fuel and precluded contamination of the edible seaweed further south: ‘‘It’s as if the May weather is here in late March,’’ Helen said.²

Indigenous belief systems suggest that humans themselves can affect the weather, through ceremony or other action. For example, Interior Salish peoples, during droughts, used certain plants to call the rain. Secwepemc elder Mary Thomas (pers. comm., 1998) recalled her own mother breaking off stems of swamp gooseberry (Ribes lacustre) during a summer drought, dipping these in the water of a mountain creek and invoking rain. On the coast, the Kwakwaka’wakw used sword fern (Polystichum munitum) as a charm to call the Northwest Wind, needed for canoe travel from Fort Rupert to Alert Bay; this was based on the persona of Sword Fern as a mythical being who controlled the weather (Boas, 1921).

Taboos against picking certain flowers because this would cause rain or bad weather are widespread. For the Ditidaht of Vancouver Island, trillium (Trillium ovatum) and pink fawn lily (Erythronium revolutum) are known as ‘‘sad flowers,’’ and it was said that if one picked them, it would become foggy or rainy (Turner et al., 1983). For the Haida, red columbine (Aquilegia formosa) and blue harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) are known, respectively asdall(-xil)-sGid(M) ‘‘red rain-flowers’’ anddall(-xı´l)- Guhlahl(M) ‘‘blue rain-flowers’’; Haida children were warned not to pick these or it would rain, making it impossible to dry the edible seaweed (Porphyra abbottiae) (Turner, 2004).

The Gitga’at maintain that peeling cedar bark or harvesting giant California mussels will cause rain, and therefore, people should never undertake these activities until after the seaweed harvest. Picking seaweed in the rain is itself a taboo, and would cause continued rain.

A lot of people like to eat those giant mussels. For some reason Nature always works together with all other forms of life, and so, with the mussels,. . .you’re not supposed to [collect them]

until after your seaweed is ﬁnished, after your halibut is dried.

Because it’s going to rain. Same way, you will feel, this is the time of year when the older women go to get their cedar bark, and prepare it for their winter weaving. And, so, they’re not allowed to do that until all the food that requires the sun and needs drying is done. Especially the halibut and the seaweed. Because, Nature works with the trees and as soon as you take that bark off . . .all the rain will come, a mist will come. . ., because the tree has a burn on it. So, to heal the tree, to keep the tree alive, a mist will come and the rain will come to soothe the burns on the tree (Helen Clifton, pers.

comm., 2001).

The restraint against picking ﬂowers is echoed in the words – perhaps the ultimate prohibition – recorded by ethnographer James Teit, of a Nlaka’pmx belief about the need to respect the earth’s vegetation:Flowers, plants & grass especially the latter are the covering or blanket of the earth[.] If too much plucked or ruthlessly destroyed [the] earth [is] sorry and weeps[.] It rains or is angry and makes rain, fog & bad weather.’’ (Turner, 2005).

Respect for the natural world is embodied in these belief systems.

Showing disrespect in other ways, such as pointing at particular mountains, or mountain ranges is also said to result in storms and bad weather. Today, some people see climate change itself as an outcome of disrespectful practices, or breaking of taboos:

It’s hard to say [what is the cause] because the weather has changed so much, it’s hard to say what’s happening to the natural growth. . .. The old people knew about the weather. I just wonder if they were alive what they’d say about this weather that we’re having now. . .. They would say somebody did something. Somebody did something, why the weather is the way it is (Helen Clifton, pers. comm., 2001).

4.1. Edible seaweed

Helen Clifton’s long experience with harvesting and processing of edible seaweed (Porphyra abbottiae) provides an excellent case example of the inextricable links between weather patterns, tides and life cycles of terrestrial and marine species in food production and food security (Turner, 2003; Turner and Clifton, 2006; Turner and Thompson, 2006). The month of May is calledha’li’ la`x la`’a`sk

‘‘the month for gathering seaweed’’; May is the usual time when the Gitga’at people move from their home village of Hartley Bay to their seaweed camp at K’yel (or Kiel) on Princess Royal Island.

Fig. 2.Spring salmonwooksdrying indoors at K’yel, because it is too rainy to dry them outdoors.

2As of February 2009, the ship continues to leak fuel; no attempts have been made to pump it out (Helen Clifton, pers. comm., 2009).

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Generally, the weather is ﬁne in May, with plenty of sunshine. This is important, because the optimal harvestable stage of this seaweed coincides with the occurrence of the low spring tides in the morning.

Under these conditions, people [mostly women in the old days]

could travel from K’yel in their canoes or rowboats, or more recently in skiffs or punts, out to the rocky shorelines of Campania and other islands, safely disembark from the boats onto the rocks, pick their seaweed, while it is exposed by the low tides during the morning, and then return to camp around noon in time to spread the seaweed out in squares on sun-heated bedrock or cedar trays (Fig. 3). The heat of the sun combined with the heat of the underlying rocks hastened the drying process, and in mid-afternoon, the women turned the squares over, to be dried thoroughly before the sun went down that evening, when they would take them in and store them for transport back to Hartley Bay.

In this same time period, the men ﬁshed for halibut and spring salmon, and the women cut the ﬁsh it into thin slices, called

‘‘wooks,’’ which they hung up to dry over cedar pole racks. The winds of May tended to come from the north or northwest, and promoted drying of both seaweed and ﬁsh. People easily accommodated minor variations in this weather pattern, by adjusting the days of seaweed harvesting and ﬁshing accordingly.

The women would watch the growth of the stinging nettle plants (Urtica dioica) around the camp buildings, as a proxy for the growth of the seaweed out across the water, since they tend to grow at the same rate. Thus, if the growing season were a little late in 1 year, this could be determined without expending time and energy traveling out to the seaweed grounds. The nettle in this case was a phenological indicator for the seaweed, just one example of numerous such indicators – including ﬂowers blooming, bird songs and appearance of certain insects – that people have used to judge relative ripening and harvesting times for plants and seasonal movements of animals (Lantz and Turner, 2003).

Once dried, the seaweed squares are brought back to Hartley Bay, and the women undertake another weather-dependent process for some of their seaweed, namely ‘‘ripening,’’ chopping, and re-drying it, before it is stored away in airtight containers for use as a condiment, soup ingredient, and valued trade good:

And so you need to dry it [seaweed] in June. Youhaveto dry it in June, before the grasses really grow long. If the grasses grow long then they retain the dew of the evening. You see, and so the evaporation of that dew is coming. . .and you’re putting your seaweed close to the ground. . .. So that takes all day to dry.

And. . .you’re moving that seaweed. About every two hours, you

will go and. . .move the seaweed so that it’s turning over. . .so that it all dries.. . .After the sun starts to set, the seaweed is cooling off now, and before that dew starts again, you gather up the seaweed. (Helen Clifton, 2001).

Since the late 1990s, seaweed harvesting for the Gitga’at has been out of sync with the weather patterns, causing serious concerns for the quality of the seaweed, for ability to process it according to age-old traditions, and for the safety of seaweed harvesters. On May 17, 2001, Helen Clifton noted that the predominant winds that year had been from the west and northwest – winds bringing storms, bad weather and big swells.

We’ve been here [at the seaweed camp at K’yel] for about three weeks now, and it’s rained every day. And we depend on the sun to dry our seaweed, because we want the rocks where we spread the seaweed on, to dry it when we bring it back over here to this camp from Campania [Island]. And, so without the sun, we’re not able to pick the seaweed. The tides have to be right, too. You have. . .the low tides in the morning, early morning, so that we could get the seaweed, bring it back here, and pack it up on the rocks to dry before, we have to get them up before noon. . ..

Untimely snow or hail at low tide also damages the seaweed:

‘‘The last 3 years have been cold and even snowy. If the growing seaweed is exposed to frost at the tips it dries out and ‘burns’. It turns brown and is no good anymore. Then you have to tear off all the tips before you harvest the rest.’’

In May 2002 there was no sunny weather at all and the season was unusually cool; only after the people had returned to Hartley Bay from K’yel, around June 7, did the weather turn sunny. By this time, the seaweed is too old and tough. Drying fish is also a problem: ‘‘Back in the days when there was an Indian summer, we could dry the fish easily. Nowadays the fish get rancid and mouldy, or full of bugs because there is so much rain; it’s so different today’’³ (Helen Clifton, pers. comm., 2003; Turner and Clifton, 2006).

4.2. Traditional Phenological Knowledge

Traditional Phenological Knowledge (TPK) is one type of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, paralleling the formalized study of species life cycle events and biological change known as

‘‘phenology’’ (Rathcke and Lacey, 1985). TPK relates to traditional knowledge of seasonal timing of growth, development, reproduc- tion and migration of organisms, which generally occurs in a predictable sequence based on temperature thresholds, length of daylight, moisture or other environmental determinants (Lantz and Turner, 2003). Environmental factors influencing species development may be recognized directly, or through concurrent effects on other species. People everywhere have learned to use physical environmental indicators – onset of seasonal rains, first snowfall, or melting patterns of particular snowbanks – as well as biological indicators – spring leafing out of certain trees or shrubs, blooming of certain flowers, such as salmonberry (Davis et al., 1995), or appearance of certain migrating animals or birds – to predict optimal times for harvesting particular kinds of fish (e.g.

spawning time for salmonids), for hunting certain animals or for Fig. 3.Edible seaweed (Porphyra abbottiae) spread out in squares to dry on the rocks,

at K’yel.

3In May, 2008, there were several days of bright sunshine, which the elders at the seaweed camp called ‘‘Hawaii weather’’. This year, some people were able to harvest plenty of seaweed over these days and dry most of it on the rocks and cedar trays without resorting to freezing. Just a couple days after, however, the rainy weather set in again, and those hoping to dry their seaweed had to put it in the freezer until better weather.

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picking berries or other activities taking place at more distant locations (Thornton, 1999). They can also predict abundance of a given species or productivity of certain plant resources through such indicators.

Helen Clifton’s use of stinging nettle growth to estimate seaweed growth, mentioned previously, is only one example of a traditional phenological indicator. Another is from an Alaskan Tlingit Chief, described byDe Laguna (1972:801), who would say,

‘‘This time we have hooligans [eulachon] in Dry Bay or Situk [and]

when geese or swans going to come, he mentions the day. No mistake. He would say: ‘Tomorrow you will see the geese,’ and they would come.’’

An ethnoecological literature survey of the study region revealed 84 words in 21 languages referring to a range of phenological events and discrete seasons. Of these, 35 relate to plant resources (26 for berries); and 49 to animals (39 for ﬁsh).

Such indicators encoded in language have enabled people to gauge when to pick certain berries, when to fish or hunt for specific game, or when the bears are beginning their winter sleep (seeLantz and Turner, 2003). Intimate understanding of species’ life cycles in relation to environmental cues is important for survival; it allows people to accommodate year-by-year variations in seasonal cycles without expending excessive energy through premature travel to distant harvesting sites, whether offshore islands, canyon floors or mountainsides.

Equally important is knowledge of expected seasons for key resources, often marked through specific names of months or moons (Kari, 1977; Claxton and Elliott, 1994; Lantz and Turner, 2003). Often these names represent an entire suite of events happening around the same time. For example, for the Tla’amen (Sliammon), the time around late February and into March, called T’agams ta Walth, ‘‘Moon of the Frog’’, because this is when the spring frog chorus starts, signifies the beginning of herring spawning and the start of the harvest season. People collect herring eggs, hunt grouse and buck deer, and fish for halibut and spring salmon. Fawns and seal pups are born, and towards the end of this period, women harvest edible roots and green shoots and begin stripping cedarbark for baskets (Sliammon Treaty Society, 2005).

This knowledge is relevant to climate change research, since encoded phenologies in the form of the moon names reﬂect expected norms and baselines for seasonal events. Observations of deviation from expectations may signal climate change. For example, one Massett Haida elder mentioned to Jaalen Edenshaw (pers comm. to NT, February 2005) that the seaweed season is about 2 or 3 weeks earlier in recent years compared to when he was younger. Conversely, some events evidently occur later than expected; for the Saanich, the month around September is C?ENQOLEW, ‘‘The Dog Salmon returns.’’ Yet in 2006, the dog salmon (chum) did not return to Goldstream in any numbers until mid-November (Roxanne Paul, pers. comm., 2006).

4.3. Expectations for variation

Also relevant is the knowledge of the expected range of variation in species abundance and productivity. It is well known, for example, that many berry species produce more abundantly in some years than in others (cf.Thornton, 1999; Parlee and Berkes, 2006); many ﬁsh runs undergo ﬂuctuations as well.

People with such deep experience recognize anomalies readily.

The fall of 2002 was unusual for Helen Clifton (pers. comm., Dec. 6, 2002). At ‘‘Old Town,’’ Kitkiata Inlet, where the elders go for salmon, instead of the usual stretch of warm, sunny weather in October, there were torrential rainstorms. The numbers of pink salmon were ‘‘way down’’ and the bears feeding on these salmon were hungry. One bear was hanging around the salmon camp and

had to be shot. After they skinned it, they found that its fat was all grey and yellow instead of the usual white, and concluded it was sick. The wolves were also behaving strangely. These changes were attributed to new and different weather patterns, with potentially harmful long-term effects on the bears and the salmon. In addition, clams and other shellﬁsh, normally harvested around February, were ready to harvest by December 6 that year. Helen noted at the time, ‘‘Everything is different now with the warmer weather;

harvesting times are way, way different.’’ That same season, there was hardly any snow on the mountains across from Hartley Bay (on Gil Island); normally, they are covered with snow. Mountain goats that should have descended to the wooded valleys by then were still high up in the mountains. As in the introductory quotation, the robins arrived early the following February; the weather was unusually warm and sunny, with hardly any snow the entire winter. This type of close observation, made year after year, by people who depend on their knowledge of the weather and environment for their survival, would be available throughout the entire region and could be systematically documented.

Recording appearance of unusual species, such as sea turtles or strange birds, is also important.Naxnoxmeans ‘‘spirit/power’’ in Sm’algyax (Tsimshian). In mid-May, 2001, a male yellow-headed blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus) – notable for its striking head colouring – appeared in Helen’s yard. This was the very ﬁrst time anyone had seen such a bird in Hartley Bay. They called it a naxnox bird because it was seen to represent a special spirit, portentous of climate change.

5. Considering traditional knowledge and observations in assessing climate change and its impacts

Climate change represents probably the greatest human- induced threat to our planet and its biodiversity of all time (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007). The IPCC report warns, ‘‘Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level’’ (IPCC, 2007).

Discourse around the IPCC report includes discussions for mitigation, such as advanced techniques for carbon sequestration.

However, also emphasized is the need to seek local solutions to economic, social and environmental sustainability, including options foradaptingto present and imminent climate change. Peter Brown, philosopher at the McGill School of Environment and author ofThe Commonwealth of Life(Brown, 2007) expressed hopes that the sobering news from the IPCC, 2007report will lead not just to reducing carbon emissions, but to changes in the functioning of the world economy, emphasizing the need for a signiﬁcant paradigm shift and stressing, ‘‘We need to move away from a model where economic growth is the only indicator of success’’ (CBC News, 2007).

Indigenous Peoples have much to contribute, both to documentation and understanding of climate change effects, and to attempts to respond to and cope with climate change at both global and local levels. In particular, there are three main areas where the input and participation of Indigenous Peoples should be particularly sought, acknowledged and supported:

providing direct knowledge and insights relating to weather, environments, species and habitats;

contributing to development of models for accommodating and adapting to ongoing and imminent climate change; and presenting alternative pathways and approaches to sustainable

living for future generations.

Each of these areas is as immense and complex as the diverse languages, cultures and environments that comprise our biosphere

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and our ethnosphere. They can be approached at different scales, and each can be complemented by and integrated with other perspectives and forms of knowledge, including from academic and political realms. As key components of a massive and concerted strategy to avert the most catastrophic and deadly conclusion to the climate change story, these elements are critically important.

The combined perceptions of Indigenous Peoples relating to changes in weather patterns, shifts in abundance, distribution, seasonal development and interactions of plant and animal species, and effects of these changes on soils, wetlands and other ecosystems, are an invaluable resource of knowledge (cf.Krupnik and Jolly, 2002). Yet, such knowledge has been little studied or documented in any broad systematic way. Because environmental changes are so direct and personal for many indigenous communities knowledge of such change is a key element of any traditional knowledge system (Berkes, 2008; Turner and Berkes, 2006).

Observations of environmental change, recorded in detail across geographic scales and carefully compiled and analyzed, can help build a clearer picture of the range of effects of climate change and how these effects interact across time and space. Many of the changes observed by indigenous and other local people are overlooked by urban dwellers, who tend to be more distanced from their food resources and often from the day-to-day effects of weather. Even ecologists and other scientists who study interactions among species and environments may not be aware of the nuances of change that can be discerned from generations of cumulative observation by long-term residents of a given place.

Indigenous knowledge, informed by millennia of intergenerational ecological observation, becomes even more powerful when it is used to complement other sources of evidence, including archaeological and paleoecological data, weather and climate data (including climate modeling), plant and animal physiology, genetics, phytochemistry and phytogeographical and ecological studies of species populations and interactions. Conventional scientific monitoring of multiple sites may be constrained by a lack of facilities, a shortage of trained researchers, and perhaps most significantly, by the comparatively short time frame allowed for most scientific studies, generally confined by the duration of project-based research grants. Thus, indigenous and local monitoring can become an even more important source of baseline and long-term information. Not only can this information help to inform science (Beaubien and Freeland, 2000; Mudie et al., 2005);

it can provide a basis for hypothesis formulation and more detailed experimentation, based on observed trends and changes.

5.1. Models for adapting to change

As well as the many environmental changes Indigenous Peoples have witnessed, endured and adapted to over the millennia, they have been subjected to an immense array of precipitous changes as a result of colonization. Not all of these changes have been negative, but many have been undesirable and have resulted in hardship and even death: debilitating disease epidemics; drasti- cally reduced access to traditional lands and resources; loss of opportunity to manage resources through control over harvesting, use of ﬁre and other means; erosion of traditional languages, particularly enforced through residential school system; reduced occasions for intergenerational learning; conversion to Christian- ity; transition to a monetary economic system; banning of the Potlatch and related ceremonial practices for many decades;

increasing loss of food security; and accompanying declining health (Turner and Turner, 2008).

Yet, despite all of these pressures and disruptions to their lives, many people and communities have managed to retain their cultural identity and key facets of their knowledge systems. Their

social institutions – subjected to other pressures such as colonial models of governance – have changed but have often retained their original essence. Traditional practices of intensive training for success in endeavors such as hunting, ﬁshing or healing; ideology of respect for the environment and other lifeforms; kincentric worldview; importance of stories, ceremonies, language and community; informal economic systems of exchange and reci- procity; and consultative protocols for planning and decision- making: all these have remained intact to some extent, and some elements, having been eroded in the past, are now being restored and renewed (Scientiﬁc Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices in Clayoquot Sound, 1995; Ommer and Turner, 2004; Atleo, 2004;

Turner, 2005; Senos et al., 2006). Despite having undergone immense change, people have managed to retain their resilience, building on self-reliance, practicality, and rich social capital.

As the specter of climate change looms, this kind of resilience – and models for social institutions that facilitate healthy and considered adaptation and response to change – are needed now more than ever. Certainly, for Indigenous communities any

‘‘homegrown’’ processes or protocols that help guide and support people as they cope with climate change will be highly relevant and desirable.

5.2. Pathways to changing paradigms

There is little question now that climate change has come about as a result of the industrial revolution. Human technology and escalating human use of fossil fuels and industrial scale agricultural practices are the main drivers of climate change (IPCC, 2007: 2). Exponential human population growth is certainly a factor as well, but it is largely the minority afﬂuent ‘‘western’’

society living according to the capitalist ideals of the modern global economy that has triggered and fed climate change. Western society is consumer-based. We place a high value on our possessions, and in our ability to provide ourselves and our families with the greatest material wealth that we can – often far more than we need to be healthy and comfortable. We tend to view other species mainly as resources, and if they do not serve our immediate needs, we attribute little value to them.

Not all societies live by such acquisitive ideals. Many indigenous societies have an alternative view of what is important for a good life. As noted previously First Peoples in North America commonly regard other species – and even physical features like mountains and rivers – as having spirits of their own, as beings in their own right, having their own societies and relationships, and their own powers that can aid us, or cause problems for us according to how well we respect and treat them (Anderson, 1996, 2005). The ‘‘kincentric ecology’’ approach is a case in point.

Regarding other species as relatives places them in a different light, attributing a higher value to them. Meaning in life is focused on such relationships, and on humans’ responsibilities to all the entities of the earth. The Mohawk Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address is a reﬂection of such a differing value system. At the beginning of a Mohawk meeting or gathering the people pay tribute to and acknowledge each element of the cycle of life, from our Mother Earth, to the waters of the world, the ﬁsh life in the water, the plant life, the animal life, the trees, the birds of the world, the four winds, the Thunder Beings, the Sun, our Grand- mother Moon, and the stars (Laurie Montour, pers. comm., 2003;

Turner, 2005).

In these societies, too, prestige and satisfaction are gained through relationships and generosity rather than in accumulation of personal wealth. A good life is one spent in service to one’s community, in living in balance with the other lifeforms of one’s homeplace. Responsibilities extend not just to the present, but to many generations into the future. In contrast, decisions in much of

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society today are based on the short-term duration of a political term of ofﬁce. Immediate proﬁt is requisite for success in business.

Furthermore, the ‘‘needs’’ of many in the predominant western society often reﬂect ‘‘want’’ rather than ‘‘need.’’ Changing the dominant industrial paradigm to far-thinking, eco-centric, community-centric perspectives could make an enormous difference to our collective impact on the planet, including the burden of human-driven climate change.

6. Recognizing and incorporating traditional knowledge and strategies to cope with and reduce climate change

Despite Indigenous Peoples’ broad knowledge and experience of environmental change, they have been, to date, ‘‘. . .largely ignored or marginalized by the IPCC and in the climate change discussion as a whole’’ (Ethnoecology and Climate Change symposium background, Environmental Change Institute, Uni- versity of Oxford, 2007). Inviting Indigenous Peoples’ participation in climate change research, policy and decision-making makes sense from both ethical and practical perspectives. From the viewpoint of social justice, the United Nations’ Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples spells out the requirement of promoting Indigenous Peoples’ ‘‘full and effective participation in all matters that concern them’’ (United Nations General Assembly, 2007). As shown from the seaweed example described previously, many Indigenous People are convinced that the effects of climate change are already being felt and that their ability to harvest and process their food for health and well-being is threatened. Furthermore, many worry about their personal safety.

One Me´tis researcher, Amanda Karst (Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources, pers. comm., 2007) elaborates:

The changes being experienced are occurring so intensely and within so many systems that it can make it difﬁcult to be on the land with the same level of security in your ways of knowing. . ..

We are especially hearing that about northern communities, where people feel less safe trying to navigate on ice and winter roads, getting caught in snowstorms, etc. Since the weather behaves so erratically now, people are not able to make judgments about their environment based on their teachings as they had in the past. So I think security can be interpreted in two ways: people are not as mentally secure in their ways of knowing or as physically secure that their knowledge keeps them safe in their environment.

Despite this expressed concern about the effectiveness of traditional teachings in the new circumstances presented by climate change, the Traditional Ecological Knowledge systems of indigenous peoples do indeed have much to offer in a practical way. Either ignoring Indigenous Peoples’ perspectives or attempt- ing to use their knowledge without their full consent and participation would be unethical.

Given, then, the ethical and practical desirability of recognizing and including Indigenous knowledge in climate change research, what are the most effective and equitable ways of learning, sharing and incorporating Indigenous knowledge? Many Indigenous communities have developed programs to document and analyze their own observations of climate change (Krupnik and Jolly, 2002;

Anonymous, 2001; Ashford and Castleden, 2001; Prince Albert Grand Council, 2005). For those wishing to support Indigenous Peoples in these efforts or to participate in documenting and respectful use of indigenous knowledge, there is a growing body of methods on which to draw, exempliﬁed by Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s book,Decolonizing Methodologies(Smith, 1999).

Ensuring that communities themselves participate fully in developing methods for documenting is a fundamental principle.

Three case examples of collaborative research benefiting both Indigenous Peoples and academic researchers on environmentally based issues are provided here. The first is the work of theScientific Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices in Clayoquot Sound (1995).

Following protests by environmentalists and Nuu-Chah-Nulth people unprecedented in scale due to impact over highly damaging clearcut logging on the central west coast of Vancouver Island, in 1993 the British Columbia government established a panel of 18 scientists, including four Nuu-Chah-Nulth cultural specialists, tasked with developing recommendations for the world’s best forest practices as they might pertain to forestry in the coast temperate rainforests of Clayoquot Sound. The Panel selected two co-chairs, one, Dr. Fred Bunnell, a wildlife scientist from the University of British Columbia, and the other, Dr. Richard Atleo (Chief Umeek of Ahousaht), who represented the Nuu-Chah-Nulth perspective on the panel. Working together, the panel first developing a process – based on Nuu-Chah-Nulth protocols of respect, consultation and consensus – for working together. Then, they established a set of comprehensive guiding principles, to which everyone subscribed and by which any decisions and recommendations would be measured. Ultimately, the panel produced five reports, one specifically on First Nations’ Perspec- tives (Scientific Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices in Clayoquot Sound, 1995), with over 100 recommendations which were accepted by government and industry, and many of which have been implemented. The collaboration with the Nuu-Chah-Nulth significantly strengthened the work and the validity of the findings, and ultimately lead to greater success than would otherwise have been possible (Lertzman, 1999).

The second example is research with northern Indigenous Peoples following the discovery of the body of a young man, Kwa¨day Da¨n Ts’ı`nchı´ (‘‘Long Ago Person Found’’), who died on a British Columbia glacier approximately 550 years ago. The melting of the glacier (probably directly relating to climate change), revealed the body to passing hunters, along with a number of key artifacts, including a spruce-root hat of Tlingit style and an Arctic ground squirrel cape of interior style. Immediately after the discovery a protocol was established between the Parks staff, archaeologists and other interested researchers, and the Cham- pagne and Aishihik First Nation on whose traditional territory he was found. Decisions about removal and placement of his body, the types of research to be undertaken (e.g. nature of his equipment, food he had eaten, and circumstances of his death), and his ultimate cremation were based on the protocol. Consultations with the Indigenous communities in the vicinity were respectful and, in the end, the research outcomes and understandings gained were widely perceived as very positive (cf.Beattie et al., 2000; Dickson et al., 2004; Mudie et al., 2005).

The third example is an international program, sponsored and coordinated through CINE (Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutri- tion and Environment at McGill), focusing on Indigenous Peoples’

food systems for health promotion. It was initiated as a result of widely held concerns among Indigenous Peoples that their indigenous food systems – and as a result, their food security and health – were imperiled due to rapid and commonly experienced socioeconomic and environmental change, including climate change. Cross-cultural case studies, representing collaborations between communities and academic partners in a number of indigenous homelands, were used to establish workable methods for documenting and assessing peoples’ indigenous food systems.

This project aimed to develop effective techniques for health promotion using local, indigenous foods across the broad range of circumstances in which the participating Indigenous Peoples live.

This work will serve as an evidence basis for global policies and interventions to protect traditional food resources for Indigenous

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Peoples’ health (Kuhnlein et al., 2006). Each community-based subproject employed a wide range of methods, including work- shops, focus group discussions and interviews with individuals and family members across generations, to document and characterize dietary change. Locally produced indigenous foods were identiﬁed and analyzed nutritionally, and their harvesting, production, and processing were documented. Surveys were undertaken to determine availability and productivity of various foods. The methods were based on those originally developed for the Nuxalk Food and Nutrition Programme of the 1980s in British Columbia;

20 years later, the beneﬁts of this original collaborative project are evident, although new concerns such as impacts of climate change on Indigenous Peoples’ food systems are now looming (Kuhnlein and Moody, 1989; Turner et al., in press).

Other studies, too, can be looked to as models. Research by sociologist Barbara Neis and her colleagues with Newfoundland ﬁshers has yielded important data linking local knowledge about changes in stocks of cod and other marine life on the Newfound- land coast with scientiﬁc research (cf.Neis et al., 1999; Neis and Felt, 2000).Coasts Under Stress, a federally funded interdisciplinary research project directed by Ommer (2007) provides many examples of community-based environmental research, including with indigenous communities, guided by knowledge and interests of the community members, and yielding a wealth of important information on environmental and economic restructuring on the East and West coasts of Canada.

Certainly barriers do exist to research of this kind, where traditional and local ecological knowledge is attributed value and importance alongside western scientiﬁc knowledge. However, when time and effort are taken to seek collaborations with Indigenous Peoples and local communities – to include their knowledge, perspectives and needs as key elements of research, planning, decision-making, training and monitoring – the beneﬁts are many (Berkes, 2008; Krupnik and Jolly, 2002).

Fundamental to decolonizing methodologies is consultation at the outset, to learn what is important to Indigenous Peoples, and assess what kinds of research they might like to see and collaborate in. In relation to climate change, many people are concerned about safety issues relating to travel, as described previously. Loss of traditional food and medicine, decrease in the health of forests, higher risk of calamitous forest fires, increased erosion, and outbreaks of pests and diseases related to changing climate are all of deep concern. Another source of great apprehension is the expansion of the oil and gas industry in Canada towards international markets, requiring construction of pipelines which are subject to damage and leakage, impact wildlife migration routes and put native habitats at risk (Berger, 1999). Perhaps even more hazardous is the anticipated vastly increased shipping traffic in coastal waters. The Gitga’at have already endured 2 years of tanker traffic along Douglas Channel to Kitimat, of condensate, which is transported by truck to the Alberta oil fields and used to extract oil from the tar sands. If pipelines are constructed from the oil fields to Kitimat, as proposed, there will be five tankers per week plying the waters adjacent to Hartley Bay, placing the Gitga’at’s clam beds, fishing grounds, seaweed harvesting grounds, seabird nesting areas and delicate coastal ecosystems at continuous risk from propeller wash, noise, and potential oil spills from accidents.

This outcome is seen as almost inevitable – just a matter of time – by the Gitga’at, who have already witnessed and endured the

‘‘impossible’’ sinking of the north coast ferryQueen of the Northin their territory in 2006 (Helen Clifton, pers. comm., 2007).

Although such operations are not treated as aspects of climate change, there is an obvious connection: more oil and gas, shipped to more distant places to be burned for industry, represents a continuation of the very practices that triggered climate change to begin with: an expansion of the industrial revolution and the

economic paradigm that places manufactured goods and con- sumerism ahead of environmental sustainability and food security of local peoples.

7. Conclusions

Indigenous Peoples of British Columbia and beyond hold a wealth of knowledge relevant to our understanding of and adaptation to climate change. Many Indigenous People also hold cultural perspectives and values different from those of dominant western society. Western scientiﬁc knowledge is critically important; no one would deny this. However, as the authors of IPCC Science Report (2007) emphasize, economic and social aspects of climate change must be addressed. Society in general can learn from Indigenous Peoples’ values and approaches, in our efforts to achieve the ‘‘paradigm shift’’ that is needed if we are truly to reduce our impacts on the earth, and to reverse the tide of global climate change.

Indigenous perspectives – about the interconnectedness of life, the importance of a long-term view of the future, the linking of human health and well-being to the health of the environment as a whole – need to be infused into western urbanized society in ways that allow understanding and consideration. Consultative and collaborative processes and research methods that respect both academic and indigenous ways of knowing are important. There are good models to follow, and methods to emulate in accomplishing effective cross-cultural education. Using mean- ingful metaphors to help us appreciate our ties to the environment and to particular species is one approach. For example, the concept of ‘‘cultural keystone species,’’ metaphorically reflective of an ecological keystone species, can promote an understanding of people’s close ties with certain plant and animal species that help define their cultures (Garibaldi and Turner, 2004). Helen Clifton sometimes refers to the adage drawn from English tradition, ‘‘April showers bring May flowers,’’ to help outsiders understand the importance of having reliable seasonal cycles of rain and sun – and how chaotic life becomes when these patterns change: ‘‘For years you could depend on that,’’ she said. ‘‘You need that. . .weather.

Worldwide the weather is so different now. You can’t depend on those old sayings’’ (Helen Clifton, pers. comm., 2001).

Climate change is complex; its causes are both environmental and social, and its impacts are manifested in many different ways, across different environments and geographic regions. Confound- ing factors such as introduction of invasive species, deforestation, resource over-exploitation, human population growth and globa- lization of our economy and food production systems are all contributors. Consequences are often distant and indirect.

Indigenous knowledge and perspectives, and the needs of Indigenous Peoples, matter signiﬁcantly in our considerations of what climate change is, its effects and ways to adapt to and remediate its impacts. We have only just begun what must surely be a critically important journey of research and learning.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Jan Salick for her work bringing this volume together and Dr. Salick and Dr. Anja Byg for organizing the original symposium on Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford at which our paper was presented. We are also grateful to Anja Byg and Anna Lawrence for their very helpful editorial suggestions, and to Neil Jennings (Assistant Editor) for his re-formatting assistance. Our work was also supported through Coasts Under Stress MCRI Research project (Rosemary Ommer, P.D.), funded through NSERC and SSHRC federal granting agencies, and a SSHRC standard research grant to NT (#410-2005-1741). We thank the Gitga’at