Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on Food Security in the Canadian Arctic

RESPONSES TO FOOD SECURITY ISSUES PROTECTING CANADIAN ARCTIC FOOD SECURITY THROUGH ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Understanding, adapting, and responding to Arctic climate change and the threat to food security is a challenge that requires the combined efforts of the scientific community, civil society, governments, national, and even international organizations. Over the past decades, much scientific work has been dedicated to data collection and analysis in order to understand the origins and processes of climate change and to establish food security baselines. The Arctic represents a crucial region of environmental and social transformation due to climate change. These transformations will impact the entire planet, as ramifications of change in the far north spread through the global networks of environmental, biological, cultural, economic, and political interconnections. The changes currently

seen in the Arctic also serve as a forewarning of what may occur in other global regions as climate change advances. Lessons learnt now in the Arctic, about how to collaborate in monitoring, mobilising, and responding to climate change, may therefore be of crucial importance for other world regions. Health data series and regional scale assessments in the Canadian North are limited. However, recent qualitative studies examining the potential health impacts of environmental change provide new insights with which to focus research and proactively develop response strategies. They show the need for community participation in filling information gaps and increasing our understanding of factors that enhance or inhibit adaptive capabilities (Furgal et al. 2002; Nickels et al. 2002).

RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD SECURITY ISSUES

Examples of adaptive strategies from northern communities has shown the inherently adaptive nature of northern society and northern Aboriginal cultures in general (Adger et al. 2003; Nickels et al. 2002; Reidlinger and Berkes 2001). However, the ability to respond varies among communities and regions and is influenced by some common critical factors. To maintain an adequate supply of traditional food, community members have had to alter their harvest mechanisms. It is clear that a commitment to programs that will protect traditional food systems is necessary.

Adaptation strategies require a broad interdisciplinary response. They must be rooted firmly in the knowledge-base of scientific monitoring and assessment, which provides data on changes in climate and their direct impacts on the physical environment and the social and cultural environment. Also it is essential to understand how these changes will impact on the network of Arctic biological systems that sustain the vibrant country food harvest. Adaptation to climate change adds a social, economic, and cultural aspects as it encompasses the ability of different societies to respond to the challenges put before them by climate change.

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IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC