Has it been frozen? Is it wet?
How many layers of snow must the reindeer break through to eat from the earth?
Climate has long been integral to the Sami way of life, an indigenous people who have more than 300 words for snow.
“It shows people have observed,” said Magga, who grew up reindeer herding in the northern reaches of Norway. Snow conditions determined where his family would move the herds.
But global warming threatens to change the lives of the Sami, a distinct ethnic group who have inhabited the polar regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia for more than 10,000 years.
On Tuesday, I visited Magga in his office at Sami University College, where he is a linguistics professor.
While in Norway, light rain sporadically fell upon the land. Global warming has led to increased rainfall in Sapmi, the Sami homeland.
As I sat in Magga's office, I looked past him and out the window to land covered with birch trees. The growth of these trees is a recent phenomenon, the result of increased rainfall in a place normally blessed with snow.
I was in Alta, Norway, as an invited speaker at an international indigenous journalists' conference. Indigenous people - communities whose homelands have been invaded by colonizers yet still maintain distinct languages, cultures and customs - share common concerns, including a right to live off the land.
The Sami are among the world's indigenous people who have managed to maintain a connection to the land through reindeer herding. More than four million reindeer inhabit the Arctic, including 2.5 million domestic reindeer.
Some herders spend up to nine months per year on the tundra and in the mountains, taking care of animals that supply the Sami with meat and hides.
But global warming is changing their landscape.
On Friday, Al Gore shared a Nobel Peace Prize with a panel of scientists - including University of Montana professor Steve Running - for bringing attention to the climate crisis on Earth.
In Alaska, sea ice is melting and the permafrost is thawing. Native Inuit villages are being destroyed. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, testified before a U.S. Senate committee in 2004 about the effects of global warming on the Inuit.
Coastal land areas are slipping into the sea, in some cases up to 100 feet a year. About 600 homes in Shishmaref, Alaska, could fall into the sea within the next 20 years as wind and water continue to warm.
Meanwhile, drinking water supplies in Inuit villages are being contaminated, and a thawing and collapsing ground is destroying roads, airports and pipelines.
In Norway, Magga is working with scientists and Sami reindeer herders, uniting the two to better understand the effects of global warming. They hope to develop a forecast of how rain is changing the landscape.
They're also asking questions.
What's going to happen if the temperature continues to rise?
What will happen in Scandinavia and other parts of the Arctic when snow disappears little by little?
“The first thing that could happen - given that the winters will be milder with rain in the winter - the whole snowpack could be locked in the winter,” said Magga, meaning ice would cover the ground and prevent the reindeer from reaching the food beneath it.
“This would be a disaster for all reindeer-herding peoples, not only here but all over the Arctic,” said Magga, past chairman of the U.N. Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues. He is now overseeing a study through Ealat, an interdisciplinary project uniting reindeer herders' traditional knowledge with natural sciences, social sciences and technology.
The time is long overdue for the rest of the world to “understand the importance of indigenous knowledge,” said Heidi Kitti, a biologist at Sami University College.
The weather has changed in the Arctic. “You can't blame indigenous peoples for the CO2 release,” said Svein Mathiesen, a project leader of Ealat.
“But you can use indigenous knowledge to help cope with it.”
Jodi Rave covers Native issues for the Missoulian. Reach her at (800) 366-7186 or at jodi.rave@lee.net
On the Web
International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry: http://www.reindeercentre.org
EALAT, a project that examines reindeer pastoralism in the light of climate change: http://www.ealat.org
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)