Arctic Science Journeys
Radio Script
1996

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Sustaining Native Communities
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STORY: Each year, during the few weeks that pass for spring and summer along the Arctic coast, sea ice retreats just long enough for Inupiaq and Inuit Eskimos to hunt bowhead whales. But what if the coast remained ice-free for months on end? Would bowhead whales still migrate north? Would less sea ice mean more offshore oil development?

These are among the questions scientists will ask during the next three years as they study the affects of a rapidly warming Arctic climate and increasing economic development on Native subsistence, employment and local control of decision making.

Jack Kruse is a sociologist at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and one of the study's leaders.

"The intent of the project is to take as a starting point what communities consider to be important to their future and consider how various forces for change such as climate change and large-scale developments could affect those factors that communities feel are important. And the study will go further than that, and identify what community, regional, state, national policies could affect the outcomes of these forces for change."

Scientists largely agree that major environmental changes are likely to occur in the Arctic in the coming decades. The global climate is getting warmer, Kruse says, and its effects are being seen.

"In certain weather circumstances, such as warm winters or wet falls, you'll get a rain that hits and freezes on the ground. Caribou can't get at their forage. These conditions have occurred at various times around the Arctic, and have caused massive die-offs of caribou. If you get relatively frequent occurrences of these freezing conditions, you could really affect the size of these caribou herds on which these communities really depend."

Four villages have agreed to participate in the study, including Kaktovik on Alaska's Beaufort Sea coast, where residents hunt whales and seals and where many work in oil industry jobs. Researchers also are working with the residents of Arctic Village, a largely Gwichin community reliant on the Porcupine caribou herd. Oclavik and Old Crow in Canada also are part of the study.

Over the past decade, biologists, ecologists and others have studied environmental changes in the Arctic. But until now, the impacts of such changes on people haven't been considered.

"In addition to this evaluation of science interested in climate change, is the evaluation of science trying to make more connections to what the actual effects are of changes in our environment on people. Part of it is an understanding among scientists and a growing consciousness among the general public that science is all interconnected and ultimately all related to things that affect people."

Whether native communities withstand environmental and economic change will depend in large measure on how they plan for and adapt to it. Knowing how a warming climate might alter whale and caribou migration routes, for example, will allow communities to continue their subsistence traditions. For Arctic Science Journeys, this is Debra Damron.