The Effects of Environmental Change on an Arctic Native Community: Evaluation Using Local Cultural Perceptions

Much is known about environmental changes in the Arctic over the last generation. Since the exploration for and development of oil and gas resources at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, a host of studies, both natural and social scientific, have focused on environmental changes and impacts.¹ The advent of concern about climate change in the 1990s has intensified interest in the American Arctic, where evidence of climate warming effects is abundant. Teams of natural and social scientists have explored these changes, too.²

With few exceptions, however, Arctic residents and particularly the Inupiat Eskimos have figured in these studies as passive markers of change. Their observations about the environment appear in reports as anecdotal evidence and are used infrequently to guide understanding of human responses to change and environmental stress, whether natural or anthropogenic in origin. This article joins a small number of studies that take seriously the perceptions of community residents and uses them in an attempt to understand a range of environmental changes.³ Cultural perceptions are also known as traditional ecological knowledge (tek), and social scientists increasingly have been interested in what it reveals about the dynamics of change and responses in the life of Indigenous communities.

The site of our research is an Inupiat Eskimo village on the Alaska North Slope.⁴ In 2003 and 2004, we met with forty subsistence hunters and fishers, all of whom had been engaged in subsistence pursuits for at least fifteen years.⁵ In interviews ranging from one to three hours in length, we listened as they told us how they hunted marine mammals including bowhead whales, walruses, and seals; land mammals including caribou, moose, wolves, and wolverines; and birds including varieties of geese and ducks. They also explained how they fished for a variety of arctic species and picked berries and gathered greens.

The objective of our interview strategy was to capture observations of subsistence hunters and fishers concerning the environment. We did not wish to direct questions or collect information of a quantitative nature on species and habitats. Yet on occasion we did prompt respondents by asking whether they had noticed any differences in recent years in such phenomena as sea ice, land conditions, rivers and lakes, snow, wind, temperature, air quality, and the physical conditions of the species hunted or fished for.⁶

This article describing our research unfolds in two substantive parts. First, we present what subsistence hunters and fishers observed concerning changes to seas, lands, and inland lakes and rivers. Next, we mention changes of weather and climate, such as precipitation, wind, temperature, and air quality. Then we describe what hunters and fishers had to say regarding the condition of the species they pursued and the observation of any new (or absent) species.

Second, we discuss the factors that respondents mentioned as likely to have brought about or influenced the changes they noticed. Four factors were emphasized most often: oil and gas exploration and development activities, climate change, toxic contamination, and natural cycles. In this part of the article we also discuss how village residents have responded to observed changes, both individually and through agencies, organizations, and institutions in the village and region.

We conclude with a summary and commentary on the value of cultural perceptions in informing us of the community impact of environmental changes.

Observations of Environmental Changes

Some of our respondents, approximately 30 percent, engaged in almost all types of subsistence activities. They did not participate in the wage economy of the village, which has limited full- and part-time jobs for residents, and those jobs require technical qualifications not easily met in a small village. Most of our respondents participated in hunting and fishing but not whaling or berry picking. As a result we have more observations about land and inland freshwater conditions than those of the seas and sea ice, to which we turn.

Ocean Changes

Residents of the village live inland, off the bank of a tributary to the Colville River that flows into the Arctic Ocean. They see the...