Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge

Where were you 20 years ago? I was in the Canadian Arctic, North of 66 latitude, when I represented the Inuit and other Indigenous tribes, on climate change adaptation to protect their pristine lands and waters in the face of change, oil & gas, and diamond mining.

🌬 The Arctic is our planet’s indicator for global climate change effects. And the effects of land and sea ice melt, and snow change (amount and size of snowflakes) has hugely affected and diminished the Inuit’s subsistence lifestyle, and of course still does.

The effects of climate change were just at the precipice of becoming more dire then, and yet to this very day, in 2021, it is astonishing to know that there is still possible action on even more oil & gas development in the Arctic.

🌨 Just 20 years ago, the Inuit would still drink lake water that was so pure and fresh, until development infringed.

Development severely disturbed not only the Inuit’s harmonious relationship with nature for subsistence living, but the migration and well-being of the animals amongst other ecosystem and socio-cultural domino-effect disruptions.

❄️ Traditional Ecological Knowledge from Indigenous cultures is sliding away, and so is much of that sacred wisdom, of the ways to live in harmony with nature from a deep well of tradition, an almost mystical-seeming knowing, but in actuality a highly attuned and embodied science.

In posts to come, I will share the words of knowing and wisdom that I documented from the Elders that are now, no longer here.

✨ How can you start to uphold what is sacred? With nature and your own Elders? Perhaps you sit with your Elders, as they share stories of their youth, perhaps you record these in creative ways.

Ask them the ways they relished in the greater purity and joy of nature. And hopefully, you may be inspired to start, through your choices, to uphold what is sacred, for your own life now, and for generations to come.

~ more in ‘Arctic Snow Change Project’ p 136-144

http://www.snowchange.org/pages/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/pages-1-222.pdf