How an Indigenous-led Climate Strategy has Supported Communities in the Covid-19 Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic and forms of global environmental change share sources of origin, including the processes of urbanization, habitat destruction, live animal trade and global travel (Barouki et al., 2020). In particular, the global conversion of land for intensive livestock agriculture has been linked to nine contemporary pandemics and will increase the risk of the emergence of future diseases, as well as climate change, biodiversity loss and land-use change.

Can Indigenous-led and local strategies increase community resilience in the face of contemporary socio-ecological challenges like the Covid-19 pandemic which are linked to global environmental change?

Covid-19 and Indigenous community resilience in Arctic Canada

Covid-19 presents a more significant threat to Indigenous people due to barriers to adequate healthcare and discrimination in healthcare treatment, higher rates of underlying health conditions, and lack of access to sanitation and adequate housing (UN, 2020). In the Canadian province of Manitoba, First Nations people make up only 10% of the population but represent 16% of the region’s cases.

Since 2016, a charity known as MakeWay have been supporting Inuit and Dene inter-generational crews to monitor, manage, and steward Indigenous territories and maintain cultural practices as part of a the Arctic Indigenous Stewardship Network.

Figure 1. Yellowknife, home to MakeWay which coordinates the Arctic Indigenous Stewardship Network.

In the face of the threat of Covid-19 pandemic, Inuit and Dene communities have mobilized to secure rural food supply chains using their local hunting and harvesting expertise for communities who haven't been able to travel to shops. They have also delivered PPE and promoted social distancing and good hygiene within communities.

The adaptability of Indigenous communities to Covid-19 draws on pre-existing community resilience, strengthened by the impacts of a changing climate, including changes to social interactions and hunting routes.

Covid-19: A wake-up call for a socially equitable green recovery?

Despite some brief environmental benefits from the Covid-19 lockdowns including lower levels of urban air pollution, the pandemic doesn't spell well for the future of the earth's planetary boundaries. Sustainability initiatives have been postponed and efforts to decarbonise the global economy may stall as the world faces the worst economic recession since World War II.

A post-pandemic economic recovery plan needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prioritise growth in low-carbon industries, which one report has estimated could cut the warming expected by 2050 by half. It is imperative, that it also incorporates principles of social equity at its core to draw on Indigenous knowledge and buffer against the disproportionate threat to Indigenous communities. Like the virus, exposure and vulnerability to the global environmental change is influenced by socioeconomic factors.

I'll leave you with this video interview from the Stockholm Resilience Centre exploring how Covid-19 might provoke renewal.