Amplified climate change in the Arctic has altered interactions between rural communities and local wild resources. Shifting interactions warrant analysis because they can influence cultural practices and food security of northern societies. We collaborated with four indigenous communities in Alaska and conducted semi-directed interviews with 71 experienced harvesters to identify local perceptions of climate-driven trends in the environment, and describe the effects of those trends on the availability (i.e., abundance, distribution, accessibility) of subsistence resources. We then linked local perceptions with scientific climate projections to forecast how availability of subsistence resources may change in the future. Hunters identified 47 important relationships between climate-driven changes in the environment and availability of subsistence resources. Of those relationships, 60, 28, and 13 % focused on changes in harvester access, resource distribution, and resource abundance, respectively. Our forecast model indicated a net reduction in the availability of subsistence resources over the next 30 years. The reduction was caused primarily by climate-related challenges in access, rather than changes in abundance or distribution of resources. Our study demonstrates how giving insufficient attention to harvester access may produce misleading conclusions when assessing the impacts of climate change on future subsistence opportunities.

Arctic communities perceive climate impacts on access as a critical challenge to availability of subsistence resources

Subsistence harvests of fish and wildlife play a vital role in the economies and ways of life of rural Alaska communities. State and federal laws establish a priority for subsistence over other fishing and hunting. These laws recognize that the economic, cultural, and social role of subsistence fishing and hunting is not uniform across Alaska: federal law limits eligibility to rural residents, and state law, while allowing all state residents to participate, requires the identification of nonsubsistence areas where subsistence fishing and hunting are not permitted. But defining “rural Alaska” and “nonsubsistence areas” sparked decades of political debate and litigation. A review of nonsubsistence areas by the Alaska Joint Board of Fisheries and Game in 2013 resulted in updated estimates of noncommercial fish and wildlife harvests. Comprehensive data from systematic household surveys in 198 rural communities provided a basis for estimating harvest levels and trends at census-area and statewide levels and crucial input to board deliberations. In 2012, rural Alaska harvests averaged 134 kg/person, while urban Alaska harvests averaged 10 kg/person. The statewide rural harvest was 26% below an estimate for the 1980s, but changes varied by region. Throughout the Arctic and Subarctic, factors shaping subsistence harvests include development, the rising costs of living, shifting resource populations, regulations, climate change, and cultural change. Understanding the vulnerability and adaptability of northern communities requires monitoring of subsistence harvests through annual programs and periodic comprehensive community studies.

Regional Patterns of Fish and Wildlife Harvests in Contemporary Alaska

Food security is a global societal challenge, and one geographic region where food insecurity is increasing is the North American Arctic and Subarctic. In this paper we synthesize research on food security in this region; important precursors and early work include reports on the impacts of land claims, the cumulative effects of industrial development and environmental change, and the health impacts of the nutrition transition among Indigenous peoples. Building on these foundations, food security research in the North has followed a path similar to that taken in the global food security literature, beginning with nutritional adequacy and security of food supplies and then downscaling to a focus on issues at the livelihood and household level. Our meta-analysis of the peer-reviewed literature reveals many reasons why people are food-insecure: challenges such as remoteness, climate change, and the high costs of food and fuel all play important roles. However, the primary drivers of food insecurity that we identify in this review relate to governance and policy challenges that have been recognized and critiqued for decades. Recommendations for future research include an improved focus on participatory research and food security interventions that acknowledge and focus on supporting the rights of local peoples to pursue food security on their own terms. This paper is relevant in the context of climatic and environmental change because it captures the role of shifting political ecologies as increased geopolitical interests in the North appear to be obscuring the rights and needs of local peoples to access and control their own land and resources.

Searching for Progress on Food Security in the North American North: A Research Synthesis and Meta-analysis of the Peer-Reviewed Literature

Transitions of social-ecological systems (SES) expose governance systems to new challenges. This is particularly so in the Arctic where resource systems are increasingly subjected to global warming, industrial development and globalization which subsequently alter the local SES dynamics. Based on common-pool resource theory, we developed a dynamic conceptual model explaining how exogenous drivers might alter a traditional subsistence system from a provisioning to an appropriation actions situation. In a provisioning action situation the resource users do not control the resource level but adapt to the fluctuating availability of resources, and the collective challenge revolve around securing the subsistence in the community. An increased harvest pressure enabled by exogenous drivers could transform the SES to an appropriation action situation where the collective challenge has changed to avoid overuse of a common-pool resource. The model was used as a focal lens to investigate the premises for broad-scale transitions of subsistence-oriented SESs in Arctic Alaska, Canada and Greenland. We synthesized data from documents, official statistics and grey and scientific literature to explore the different components of our model. Our synthesis suggests that the traditional Arctic subsistence SESs mostly comply with a provisioning action situation. Despite population growth and available technology; urbanization, increased wage labor and importation of food have reduced the resource demand, and we find no evidence for a broad-scale transition to an appropriation action situation throughout the Western Arctic. However, appropriation ­challenges have emerged in some cases either as a consequence of commercialization of the resource or by severely reduced resource stocks due to various exogenous drivers. Future transitions of SESs could be triggered by the emergence of commercial local food markets and Arctic warming. In particular, Arctic warming is an intensifying exogenous driver that is threatening many important Arctic wildlife resources inflicting increased appropriation challenges to the governance of local harvest.

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Transitions of social-ecological subsistence systems in the Arctic

The relationship between stability and change in social-ecological systems has received considerable attention in recent years, including the expectation that significant environmental changes will drive observable consequences for individuals, communities, and populations. Migration, as one example of response to adverse economic or environmental changes, has been observed in many places, including parts of the Far North. In Arctic Alaska, a relative lack of demographic or migratory response to rapid environmental and other changes has been observed. To understand why Arctic Alaska appears different, we draw on the literature on environmentally driven migration, focusing on three mechanisms that could account for the lack of response: attachment, the desire to remain in place, or the inability to relocate successfully; alternatives, ways to achieve similar outcomes through different means; and buffering, the reliance on subsidies or use of reserves to delay impacts. Each explanation has different implications for research and policy, indicating a need to further explore the relative contribution that each makes to a given situation in order to develop more effective responses locally and regionally. Given that the Arctic is on the front lines of climate change, these explanations are likely relevant to the ways changes play out in other parts of the world. Our review also underscores the importance of further attention to the details of social dynamics in climate change impacts and responses.

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Staying in place during times of change in Arctic Alaska: the implications of attachment, alternatives, and buffering

Most rural residents in Arctic communities rely on motorized transportation to hunt, fish, trap, and gather subsistence resources. Although these technologies have created advantages, one significant disadvantage is that peoples' ability to meet their nutritional and cultural needs now depends on consistent opportunities for wage employment and availability of affordable fuel. Recent qualitative research suggested that rising fuel prices have disrupted subsistence lifestyles in the Arctic. Our objectives were to collaborate with subsistence users in rural Alaskan communities to quantify how rising fuel costs have impacted subsistence activities and explore ways local residents may adapt to the trajectory of change. We conducted interviews with 178 subsistence harvesters in 8 communities. During the last 10 years, 81% of the harvesters reduced the distance they traveled for subsistence and 89% reduced the number of subsistence trips they took because of gasoline costs. During the last 10 years, the median distance traveled to perform subsistence decreased by 60%, and the median annual number of trips taken to perform subsistence decreased by 75%. The change in subsistence activity was similar across and within communities. Eighty-five percent of the people interviewed reported that they were making sacrifices with serious consequences, such as putting off paying monthly bills, to buy gasoline for subsistence activities. To adapt to high gasoline prices, most participants said that they are using more efficient modes of transportation (69%), followed by more sharing of gasoline costs with family and friends (37%), and conducting more multipurpose subsistence trips (20%). With subsistence practices being critical to food security and cultural identity in the Arctic, our results suggest that unaffordable fuel has threatened social resilience. Because global markets drive gasoline prices, we suggest that future research focus on the effectiveness of adaptation options that build resilience into subsistence systems.

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Karonhiakta'tie B. Maracle

Papers

Impact of fuel costs on high-latitude subsistence activities