Natural disasters due to climate change have impacted over 2 billion people since the year 2000, with those in Arctic and Pacific communities disproportionally affected. An international team, including researchers from Penn State, has been awarded $1 million to compare climate risks and resilience in Arctic and Pacific communities.
Funded through the Belmont Forum, along with support from France and Norway, the “ResilienceS to climate risks: lessons from arctic and pacific communities (RETRACE) Project” will explore how Indigenous communities are handling climate change to develop more inclusive approaches to mitigating climate risks. The Belmont Forum provides knowledge and funding for communities to understand, mitigate and adapt to global climate change.
“Climate change is having a great impact on Indigenous communities around the globe, but existing research in this area is much underfunded,” said co-principal investigator Guangqing Chi, professor of rural sociology, demography and public health sciences and Social Science Research Institute co-funded faculty member at Penn State. “Indigenous communities actually have effective knowledge and practices to adapt to climate change. We want to translate their knowledge and wisdom to help western society enhance their resilience.”
The researchers will focus on the two geographical areas that are identified by climate scientists as the most vulnerable to climate risks: the polar zones and the Pacific Islands. For this project, researchers will concentrate on three Indigenous communities in Norway, Alaska and French Polynesia.
“Indigenous communities in the Pacific and Arctic have acquired, preserved and perpetuated in their culture, habits and knowledge to cope with climate risks,” said co-principal investigator Pascal Egli, associate professor at the Institute of Geography in Norway. “These forms of resilience are little-known in international scientific research and therefore not used in decision-making.”
The research team will interview community members to learn about their expertise, culture, memories and potential concerns regarding their climate risk resilience.
“We want to document the Indigenous communities’ resiliencies based on their experiences, knowledge passed down through generations and knowledge of their own climates,” said principal investigator Charlotte Heinzlef, professor associate in climate risk and resilience strategies at the University of Paris Saclay-Versailles Saint-Quentin in France.
The researchers will make the collected quantitative data available in open access in the regions of Norway, Alaska and French Polynesia. Working with local community partners, the researchers will develop a decision-support system that will combine international science and technology with the expertise and knowledge of traditional communities and disseminate their findings to these and other Indigenous communities.
“Now more than ever it is essential to find effective ways to enhance the resiliencies of local communities to develop more inclusive approaches to addressing climate risks,” said Chi, who previously worked with Indigenous communities in Alaska experiencing climate change.
In addition to funding from the Belmont Forum, the project is also supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, French National Research Agency and the Research Council of Norway.