Spotlight: The Batwa of Uganda

In Uganda, over 80% of the population is dependent upon rain-fed agriculture, so will be hit hard by changes in climate, particularly precipitation. Yet, it is economically underdeveloped with a severe strain on healthcare resources. However, again, this vulnerability is not evenly distributed. The Batwa are an Indigenous people located in the southwest highlands of Uganda, and are a group particularly sensitive to climate change as a result of their marginal social status and livelihoods reliant on natural resources.

Conservation Refugees

There are around 6700 Batwa across three districts in southwest Uganda. During the 1990s, the Batwa were forcibly evicted from the forest to make way for conservation projects, including the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. The mountain gorillas of Bwindi once shared the forst with the Batwa, who had lived there for more than 4000 years.

Image from United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda

The Batwa have never hunted the apes, but as the gorillas are so closely related to humans, the existence of Batwa in the forests could increase the risk of infections being passed from humans to the animals. The Batwa were therefore evicted from their ancestral home in 1991, when the National Park was announced, with no land rights or compensation. The dislocation resulted in the removal of access to traditional foods, shelter and medicinal resources, and rendered the Batwa low in health and socioeconomic status when compare to the rest of the population.

Climate Change in Uganda

It is difficult to predict how climate change will materialize in Uganda due to a lack of scientific monitoring. Uganda's current climate is equatorial, with humid and hot condition throughout the years, and two rain seasons. However, it is likely that Uganda will face unpredictable rainfall and warmer temperatures, and increased extreme weather events including droughts, floods and heat waves. The frequency of droughts has already increased, with seven droughts in Uganda between 1991 and 2000, and increases in floods has led to outbreaks of waterborne diseases. Agricultural yields will be reduced as a result of climate change, as well as increased water stress, with potentially severe impacts on coffee- Uganda's most lucrative export crop.

Effect of temperature increase on Uganda's coffee crops

In the Kanungu District, Patterson et al. found that 97% of Indigenous households are severely food insecure. The Batwa are already vulnerable to seasonal variation, and this variation will only increase as the environment changes.

However, over the last few decades, the Batwa have improved significantly in wellbeing and have an extensive history of resilience. I found it interesting to read that the Batwa consider climate change to be a minor threat- perhaps because the economic and social determinants of wellbeing are more pressing at the moment. Additionally, households with secure land tenure are more optimistic about the state of their future. I have spoken about the benefits of Indigenous land rights before in regards to climate change mitigation, but land tenure security also has a significant impact on Indigenous health. Child mortality (under five years of age) was 41% lower in Batwa households with land compare to those with land, demonstrating that land ownership needs to be integral to future interventions.

Spotlight: Aboriginal Australians

Aboriginals are believed by archaeologists to have arrived in Australia approximately 45,000 years ago. However, since colonisation by the British in the eighteenth century, Aboriginals have been discriminated against and made to face terrible conditions, increasing their vulnerability to environmental change. In this blog, I will discuss how two dimensions of environmental change- the introduction of alien species, and climate change- have affected Australia's indigenous population.

Introduced species

Invasive species are one of the major threats to biodiversity. In Australia, numerous animal and plant species have been introduced as a result of colonisation by the British. Aside from their potential negative impacts on native flora and fauna, rejection of alien species by indigenous peoples also arises from them being representative of European dispossession. However, in many cases, introduced species have been embraced within Aboriginal traditions. Cats and rabbits are now incorporated into Aboriginal diets, and horses and cattle are significant in Aboriginal pastoral industry. In his paper on Aboriginal reactions to introduced species, David Trigger puts forward the case that some species are now utilised by indigenous peoples, and have even been admired by Aboriginal writers and artists.

One of the introduced species that has not been so warmly welcomed is the cane toad. The cane toad can grow up to 23cm, and produces toxins not found in native Australian amphibians. Over 3000 toads were introduced to Australia from Hawaii in 1935 as a biological control of sugar cane pests in north eastern Queensland. They can affect native species through predation and competition, but by far the largest impact is lethal toxic ingestion. The native predators have no evolutionary history of adapting to the toxins that cane toads possess, so the toxin often has fatal effects when the toads are eaten.

Cane toads are viewed as pests by indigenous people. At first, many Aboriginals were afraid of drinking the water where cane toads were found, out of fear that the toxin would leach into the water. In Seton & Bradley's case study on the impact cane toads have had on Aboriginal Yanyuwa culture, stress and depression were found to be prevalent among women, as their search for traditional prey including goanna and blue tongued skink results only in the inedible cane toads. They have also expressed sadness that Aboriginal songs referencing animals no longer reflected the world around them, as those species had been driven out by invasives. 

Climate change and aboriginal health

Following colonisation, Australia's indigenous people were devastated by diseases brought over with the colonisers, and dispossession took its toll on both physical and mental health. Even now, inadequate or inappropriate medical services and housing means that Aboriginal communities suffer disproportionately when it comes to physical health and mental wellbeing. In fact, whilst Australians overall have some of the best health conditions in the world, the indigenous community of Australia are among the least healthy when compared to indigenous populations of similarly industrialised nations.

Climate change is likely to further the disparity in health between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. By using extremes indices, Alexander and Arblaster have created future projections until 2099. Their research indicates a likely increase in warm nights and heat wave duration. As you can see, precipitation-based indices tend to have more noise than the temperature-based indices, but there is clearly an increase in both consecutive dry days and very heavy precipitation contribution. Therefore, longer dry spells can be expected, culminating in heavy precipitation events.

Future projections of extremes indices between 1870 and 2099

Australia is home to unique and endemic wildlife, and its ecosystems are susceptible to even subtle changes in climate. In one survey by Rigby et al., Aboriginal participants already felt that drought-related loss of flora and fauna has had an impact on seasonal work, resulting in an increased reliance on government income support. This has led to feelings of guilt and grief, a lowering of self-esteem, and an increase in alcohol abuse.

In hot, dry conditions, like those predicted by Alexander and Arblaster, diseases such as bacterial diarrhoea tend to increase. Also, an increase in temperature may cause a spike in Dengue fever. Although the virus is not endemic in Australia at the moment, there have been occasional epidemics in northern Queensland, which could be exacerbated by environmental changes.

Indigenous health appears to have been let down by medical school curricula so far, and indigenous preventative health care, in particular, needs to be in increased in Australia as the climate changes. However, many adaptive strategies- such as Aboriginal health promotion programs and a revitalisation of Aboriginal arts to combat mental health issues- are taking place and will hopefully begin to close the gap in those most affected by climate change.

Indigenous Land Rights and the Paris Agreement

On Friday 4th November, the Paris Agreement entered into force. Although most indigenous leaders around the world support the ratification of the Paris Accord, is has not always been smooth sailing.

The Paris Agreement offered the chance to secure respect for Indigenous peoples' rights and amplify their voices.  During the drafting stage, however, pressure from the United States, EU and Australia led to the recognition of Indigenous rights being moved from the legally binding text of the climate accord to the non-binding preamble, due to a fear of legal liabilities.

“Right now, the talks are a failure. Our voices are not being heard,”  

-Jorge Furagaro Kuetgaje, climate coordinator for Coica

This doesn't seem to make much sense. It is now widely known that the fight for Indigenous rights is closely intertwined with the issue of climate change, and indigenous communities play a crucial role in safeguarding our global environment. So, here are a few things from two reports (one published by the World Resources Institute in October, and another by the Rights and Resources Initiative a few days ago) that we now know about indigenous land rights in the context of climate change mitigation:

• Average deforestation rates inside tenure indigenous lands in Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia were up to 2.8 times lower than outside tenured indigenous forests

• Nearly a quarter of the carbon stored in tropical forests is under the care of indigenous communities

• Securing land for indigenous and traditional populations in these terrestrial tropical regions could keep up to 54,546 million metric tons of carbon out of the atmosphere

• At least one tenth of the carbon stored in tropical forests is not formally protected

• The benefits of securing indigenous lands in the Amazon basin outweigh the costs by the ecosystem services they provide. For example, in Bolivia, it has been estimated that tenure-secure indigenous lands can generate a net benefit of up to $10,784 per hectare.

This isn't necessarily news, however. In 2013, Nolte et al. published their findings that when deforestation pressure is high, indigenous lands have lower deforestation rates than both protected areas and sustainable use areas. Indigenous communities manage approximately 50% to 60%  of the world's land, but only 10% is legally recognised. Securing tenure for indigenous lands would affirm the status of indigenous peoples, and in many cases is fundamental to the cultural survival of indigenous and traditional communities. It is also relatively inexpensive climate change mitigation strategy with the preservation of ecosystem services resulting in economic gains.  The Paris agreement is the largest piece of climate change legislation to ever be enacted, but for Indigenous rights at least, the ratification signifies a missed opportunity.

Spotlight: People of the Whales (Part 2)

Inupiat whale hunter Price Brower reaches out to touch a bowhead whale 

As mentioned in my previous post, the Inupiat have sustainably hunted the bowhead whale for generations. Archaeological evidence suggests that postglacial Inupiat settlements followed whale distribution, and historically they harvested around sixty bowhead whales per year from the Bering Sea. 

Arctic communities tend to adjust to the abundance of their resources. For example, when the climate is warmer, and food is abundant, hunting and sex taboos are lifted to encourage an increase in birth rate. However, these are implemented again when the climate is colder and resources begin to diminish. 

The discovery of the arctic bowhead stocks by American whaleman Captain Thomas Roys in 1848 marked the beginning of intensive whaling in the Bering Sea. The bowhead whale was hunted by commercial whalers for oil, meat, and baleen. This caused the Inupiat harvest to fall to one-sixth of previous levels. By 1910, whaling operations had collapsed due to the reduced bowhead population and a decline in demand for whale products. 

In 1977, the International Whaling Committee estimated the worldwide bowhead population at between 800 and 2000 individuals, but Inupiat insisted the population was higher. The US government faced a dilemma: turn its back on its ethical and legal obligations to the Inupiat, or allow the hunt to continue and potentially undermine the international movement to protect the whales. After an appeal by the US delegation to allow a 'modest take' by the Inupiats was rejected by the IWC Scientific Committee, the harvest was immediately banned.

In response the news, indigenous whalers formed the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Committee and successfully convinced the IWC to allow a subsistence exception under an annually reviewed quota system. Alaska Native hunters take around 0.1-0.5% of the population per year, with the number of kills ranging between 14 and 72 per year, and the AEWC is required to provide information including estimated mortality and reproduction rates to the IWC.

Inupiat celebrate the whale hunt

Some people may find these images abhorrent- particularly considering the status and perilous history of the bowhead whale. It raises the question of whether such a species should be hunted at all. On a very personal level, I'm a vegan and don't like the killing of any animal. However, I definitely have privileges that we all take for granted; my local supermarket is about five minutes away from my flat, and the turkey at Christmas could easily be replaced with a variety of meat-free substitutes. Food prices in Barrow, Alaska, are extortionately high,and Inupiat rely on the bowhead and other marine mammals for subsistence with few practical alternatives. 

I never thought I would say anything other than 'all whaling is wrong and should be banned', but for now I don't know if I can outright condemn Inupiaq whaling. According to the IUCN, the bowhead population is increasing, and the quotas are widely adhered to. The main modern threats are habitat loss and toxics accumulating in the Arctic, and the individuals taken by indigenous hunters have not affected the whale's recovery. Nevertheless, I think there still needs to be continued dialogue between the IWC and the Inupiat, and careful monitoring of the Bering population to secure its future. 

I would be very interested to hear your thoughts!