Climate and Ecosystem Changes in the Kivalliq: Monitoring, Preparedness & Adaptation

Climate change can impact access to country food for Inuit if the rivers, lakes, and the sea become more hazardous for travel. Hunting is costly and climate change is exacerbating the damage caused to equipment. As a result, access to wildlife has diminished over the years.

“Country foods are the more healthy food for us. We like caribou with tunnuq (caribou fat) and fat seal in the fall, we like to catch fresh fish any time of the year. Country food is our delicacy, it is the most nutritive food for us.”

– Poisey Alogut, Community Hunter

Climate change is likely to have indirect impacts on people by first impacting the microscopic organisms located at the bottom of the food chains. These effects scale-up to the country food species that are used by families. For example, the receding sea ice is predicted to impact the ice algae which forms the base of the food chain sustaining Arctic cod, ringed seal and polar bear. On the other hand, the longer ice-free season is predicted to benefit phytoplankton growth and the food chain sustaining capelin, beluga, bowhead whales, and migrating seal species. The ecosystem-wide impacts of climate change might affect energy gain, health, reproduction and survival of the species used as country foods by Inuit.

Here is a short animated film explaining the Arctic marine food web and how climate change affects the relationship between marine organisms. Emphasis is put on the impact of trophic changes on the marine mammals important for the subsistence of Inuit communities.

Our first goal is to develop an ecosystem-based vision of our country food by addressing the ecological role of the multiple species forming the marine food chains that sustain the country food species. We merge traditional knowledge, also referred to as “Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit” or IQ, and scientific methods to:

• Document changes in the microscopic marine organisms (e.g., ice algae)
• Study how country food species (Arctic char, ringed seal, bearded seal, beluga, and polar bear) make use of different food chains and
• Document changes in the diet and abundance of country food species.

The project is steered by the Kivalliq Wildlife Board and the field team is made up of local experienced hunters, youth and students from the community. ArctiConnexion provides training opportunities for fieldwork, lab work and data analyses in the community and down south at research centres.

We monitor water chemistry parameters (pH, salinity, dissolved oxygen, temperature), ice-algae, zooplankton, benthic invertebrates, and fish. We also run lab analyses such as stable isotopes, fatty acids, bar-coding to reconstruct the trophic web of the marine ecosystem near Kangiqliniq and Tikiraqjuaq. In addition, we classify the families/species of zooplankton and benthos collected. To document Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, we run individual and group interviews with Elders and land users. We use maps to collect spatial information.

As a community, the priority is to adapt to the reality of climate change to maintain long-term access to country food. To do so, we first need to be able to understand how climate change affects our country food species and also keep track of how well they do. For example, making scenarios on population size in the future will help our decision-makers to plan for the harvest of country food species. We believe that this knowledge is needed to equip Wildlife Boards with new tools for decision-making.

We must account for traditional knowledge and principles of environmental stewardship embedded in Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit when adapting to changes in wildlife and access to country foods. We believe that our adaptive capacity depends on our ability to pass on knowledge to younger generations. Many of our Elders and hunters have been successful in adapting their hunt to account for the new realities, but younger and more inexperienced hunters need to gain more experience and this project aims to educate them.