Read the full interview on SciencePoles, the scientific website of the International Polar Foundation.
Food security (when food is available, accessible and of sufficient quality) is a major issue for the Inuit of northern Canada. Climate change is making it increasingly more difficult for hunters to access traditional hunting routes and changing animals’ natural distribution areas. On top of this, traditional hunting knowledge is not being passed from one generation to the next as easily as it used to, and the cost of living in the Canadian Arctic is exorbitant.
In the following interview, Marie-Pierre Lardeau of McGill University in Montréal discusses food security issues Inuit in many parts of Canada are facing as well as some of the projects she and her colleagues including are working on with Dr James Ford to document the current situation.
An interview with Elisapi Davidee-Aningmiuq, the program coordinator at the Iqaluit Tukisigarivik centre. The drop in center is open every weekday, and provides a breakfast program, free country food, and land skills training to the community of Iqaluit, Nunavut.
The center is one of three community organizations in Iqaluit which our research group has partnered with on the project, “Feeding the family during times of stress: Food security, climate change and globalization in the Canadian North (2009 – 2011).”
To watch this video in HD, click here.
Press Release: McGill Researchers: Aboriginal Canadians need better health support in face of climate change
2010 June 24
Download the release here (pdf).
“Climate change has been identified as potentially the biggest health threat of the 21st century,” says a study by researchers from McGill, Trent, and the University of Alberta which examines the vulnerability of Aboriginal health systems in the face of climatic change. “Intervention is needed to prevent, prepare for, and manage climate change effects on Aboriginal health but is constrained by a limited understanding of vulnerability and its determinants.”
James D. Ford, E. C. H. Keskitalo, Tanya Smith, Tristan Pearce, Lea Berrang-Ford, Frank Duerden, Barry Smit (2010). WIRE’s Climate Change 1(3). Download PDF.
Assessing vulnerability is an important component of human dimensions of climate change (HDCC) research. Vulnerability assessments identify and characterize who and what are sensitive to climatic risks and why, characterize adaptive capacity and its determinants, and identify opportunities for adaptation. This paper examines the importance of case study and analogue methodologies in vulnerability research, reviews the historical evolution of the two methodologies in the HDCC field, and identifies ways in which they can be used to increase our understanding of vulnerability. read more…
The following segment aired on CBC North the evening of May 17th.
This presentation was given to guests at a dinner hosted by the CIHR and IAPH in Iqaluit, May 11, 2010.
Yesterday (May 8), Dr. Ford and I traveled to the floe edge with ILMP project hunters Josh Attagouk and Levi Pishuktie; four other Iqaluit area hunters joined us. Heavy snowfall in late winters has enabled the sea ice to persist later into the spring than has become typical, however, the overlaying snow is becoming waterlogged because melt water is retained on top of the ice. Josh noted that travel across this type of slushy snow requires much more fuel than compact snow or ice. Despite the persistence of sea ice, all hunters noted that the traditional route down Frobisher Bay was impassible all winter due to thin ice. read more…
Read the original article here.
A Montreal researcher is studying the true value of food banks and soup kitchens in fast-growing northern centres such as Iqaluit, where more people are using the services.
An average of 70 people a day used the Iqaluit food bank on food-delivery days last year, up from an average of 39 people in 2007. Meanwhile, the number of people using the Iqaluit soup kitchen has doubled since it opened in a new, central building last fall.
“Down at the old soup kitchen, 30 to 35 people would be a full load for the day,” said Jerry Peet, a longtime volunteer at the soup kitchen. “Here, we’re getting anywhere between 55 and 70 people everyday.”
Marie-Pierre Lardeau, a doctoral student with McGill University, said she is interviewing people who use the soup kitchen, food bank and the Tukisigiarvik centre, a first stop for people seeking social services in the city of about 6,200.
“We’re trying to understand who is using these services in Iqaluit,” Lardeau told CBC News.
See the original article by Hélèna Katz here.
As Arctic sea ice gets thinner and warmer temperatures thaw permafrost, hunting for their traditional food sources is becoming a more expensive proposition for the Inuit. It’s one of the findings of a three-year study led by James Ford, associate professor of geography at McGill, along with colleagues from the University of Guelph.
They examined the social, economic and cultural impact of climate change on 15 Inuit communities. “We were looking through the eyes of local people and at the dangers in their everyday life,” Ford says. The study appeared in a recent issue of the journal Global Environmental Change.
