Transcript Traditional Knowledge & Radionuclides Project

www.nativeknowledge.org
Alaska Native Science Commission
Interior Regional Meeting Summary
 Changes
 Possible
causes of changes
 Ideas for action
Changes
 People
dying of stomach cancer,
ulcers, other cancers (what gets in
bloodstream)
 Heavy
use of clinic
– colds, back aches
 Loss
of traditional medicine people
Changes
 Change
in diet
– change in mix of Native foods,
vegetables, store bought foods
– store bought meats
– instant foods
– pop, juices, junk food
Changes
 Changes
in food storage
– freezers - how long does it last?
– using food from cans kept open too
long
– vegetables, fruit kept too long in stores
Changes
 High
E-Coli levels in river water
 Yellow stuff in river
 Discolored water in washeteria
 Changing our ways of living to be
“better” brought problems to us
 Clarify last point – but recollection is
that it was consensus of the elders
Changes
 Sometimes
kids don’t seem to care about
Native ways of living - but they do and
programs help them learn (e.g. culture
camp in Tanacross)
 Loss of elders’ knowledge
 Addition – there are kids that DO care
also. They are hungry for it. The statement
was trying to reflect both feelings – loss
of caring and things going on that are
reflections of renewed caring.
Changes: Abnormalities in
animals and fish
 Whitefish
wormy
 Salmon (pus bags in meat, worms)
 Moose (taste, water bags in lungs)
 Muskrats (spots on lungs and liver, not as
fat)
 Beaver (recently spots on liver)
 Caribou (runny marrow)
 Diseases in waterfowl
Additions
– other birds as well as
waterfowl.
 Addition – last fall (’99) some whitefish
had fungus on flesh.
 Addition – lot of our fish are being
displaced by draining water – e.g. lakes
that drain out and we lost a special kind of
whitefish. Melting of permafrost causes
this.
 Addition
Changes
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High levels of PCBs, DDTs in King Salmon
High levels of mercury in fish
Strange behavior of animals and fish
– moose starving
– moose eating garbage
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Animals leaving area (due to handling,
disturbance)
Addition – moose decline also because of
environmental change – too much extreme
changes in weather. Also predator problems – wolf.
For example, right now with deeper snows, wolves
in packs can get to caribou and moose.
Changes
 Increase
in beavers
 Decrease in muskrats around Ft. Yukon
and Huslia
 Large number of wolves (hamstringing
moose - infections)
 Less birds - used to hear so many singing
 Addition – except not so many beavers
around Huslia; they moved out.
 Addition – beaver came up around Arctic
Village as new vegetation (e.g.
Cottonwood) comes in.
Changes
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Fewer waterfowl - noise in fall not there
Increase in cranes on Minto flats
Changes in bird songs - change of time
Addition – strange other birds; woodpeckers
around Arctic Village, small hawks, magpies, other
birds
Addition – changed migratory routes from through
Prince William Sound region to directly through
Canada.
Addition – lots of ducks and birds that we shoot
have a lot of oil in them; little sandpipers never
came back around Arctic Village after the oil spill.
Addition – haven’t seen Red Pharalopes in both
NW AK and Interior in last 10-15 years.
Changes
 Die-off
of whitefish
 Dead fish on water (Fish Lake)
 Lack of big king salmon
 Long term decrease in fish
populations (used to get bins of fish)
 Catching hatchery fish (taste
different)
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Addition – some of those fish are dying from heat
exhaustion – when the water drains from the lake, the water
heats up and there isn’t enough oxygen. Otherwise the fish
looked still healthy and the tests didn’t show anything
wrong.
Addition – now have tons of humpies but not before from
Kaltag up the Kuyukuk River. We don’t know where they
came from.
Addition – used to be a lot of eels
Addition – belugas all the way above Tanana, almost to Ft.
Yukon
Addition – large hatchery releases can go beyond capacity
of ecosystem
Addition – Fish lake filled with water with sediments
Addition – Beaver dams up the creeks along with more
vegetation prevents fish from spawning.
Changes
 Trees
in new areas
 Die-off of trees and blueberry bushes
in areas the size of this room
 Drying up of lakes into meadows
 Addition – new trees in the flats;
treeline moving
 Addition – spruce beetles, other
insects coming in
Possible causes of changes
 Water
pollution
– local sources (dumps, honey buckets,
military sites)
– mining (mercury, ? in Fish Lake)
– chemicals from dust control on Dalton
Highway entering river
– snowmachines, 4-wheelers (oil)
– oil spills all over world - effects on fish
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Addition – warming of water, sediments
Addition – dumping of antifreeze
Addition – cyanide, zinc, arsenic from mining?
Addition – whatever is in the air that comes long distances
– back in the 40’s and 50’s the snow started tasting
different. Even today it tastes different.
Addition – chemicals not so much for dust control but to
prevent it from eroding too quickly. But dust is a problem
with the summer traffic.
Addition – also spraying around the town for mosquitoes
and for dust control of summer traffic.
Addition – in the past, PCBs, DDT – mostly from military
use locally. DDT to keep the bugs down, PCBs in oil put on
the roads. Now coming from other countries via
atmosphere.
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Addition – nuclear bomb testing and Chernobyl fallout came down
in our area (Interior AK).
Addition – military buried a lot around Ft. Yukon and there are areas
that have no vegetation.
Addition – are there different types of dumps – are they up to code?
A: generally not. Also wind picks up plastics and spreads them in
the environment, getting into the water.
Addition – in some places, the power plants burn the used oil and
that may not be healthy. If the boiler is set properly for burning
recycled oil, it can be ok. But never in an open pit or barrel.
Addition – burning of old wire and plastic containers because of the
cost of transporting it out.
Addition – slower process of decay due to colder weather, so things
stay around longer.
Addition – mercury shows up in fish up near Arctic village because
it can be airborne. Also longer, cooler weather here brings down
persistent organic pollutants brought here in the atmosphere.
Addition – more development in the regions – specifically ANWR.
Regional corporations are under a lot of pressure
Potential causes of changes
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– Fire retardants
– Clearcutting by Tanana River
– Acid rain
– Distant sources of water pollution (sunk submarines)
Addition – oil and gas development.
Addition - Gas burning up north doesn’t disappear as it
does further south. Cold air makes it come back down right
away, right in the village.
Addition – development itself brings new access (e.g.
roads), stream crossings, and many changes to small
communities (e.g. more hunters, chemicals dumped on the
roads)
Addition – development can change migration of caribou
(e.g. CAH with pipeline, PCH)
Possible causes of changes
 Air
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pollution
– Lower 48 vehicle exhaust pollutants falling on
plants eaten by animals
– Killing tops of trees
– Cloud seeding for rain
Addition – more extremes of cold and heat in the
climate displaces animals
Addition – mining near Birch Creek – got them to
recycle water and that cleaned up the creek; now
they have returned to the old practice and the
water is getting yellow again.
Possible causes of changes:
Land pollution
 Garbage
left out on the land
 Fuel dumped during refueling of
fighter planes; or during
emergencies by large planes
 fiber tinfoil chaff used by fighter
pilots to jam radar during training
 Chemicals sprayed near blueberries
 Spraying around camps (‘70s)
Possible causes of changes
 Pesticides,
persistent organics
– DDT
– PCBs
Accumulation of poisons in body from
fish, caribou, vegetables - 2 sources: land
and store
 Use of too many medicines
 Military wastes (White Alice)
 Burnt Mountain nuclear reactor
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Addition – on Seward P., four cans of DDT still there from
mining operations used to kill mosquitoes in settling
ponds.
Addition – we don’t know what is in these old buildings.
They are private, so we can’t go in.
Addition – can’t keep track of private planes. They can
buzzing caribou for – we don’t know – pictures, to land and
shoot them. They are gone before we can get someone to
look into it.
Addition – hikers, rafters, tourists, recreational people have
an impact too
Addition – urban centers produce a lot of contamination –
the big inversions concentrate the bad air and then it
comes over to us.
Addition – lead shot used for bird hunting. A lot of people
say that with the new steel shot the birds don’t die.
Possible causes of changes
 Changes
in weather
 Winters without a real cold snap
increase beaver survival - lakes don’t
freeze to bottom
 Hot (as opposed to warm) summer
temperatures
 Droughts
– lakes can also freeze to the
bottom when the snow doesn’t come as
early.
 Addition – 3-4 years ago we had rain in
the springtime and we had a crust of ice
over the hills. We saw 30-40 bears one
year but the next year they were just
gone, perhaps they suffocated in their
dens.
 Addition
Possible causes of changes
 Disrespect
for animals, land
– handling animals (marking beaver, mink)
Too much high living (vehicles, plastics)
 People trying to dominate nature (walk on
the moon)
 Less money in communities - food staying
longer in stores
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Possible causes of changes
 Hunting
competition, access to lands
 Lands are over-populated
 Commercial fishing, bycatch
 Hatcheries - mixing of hatchery and wild
fish
 Forced to change - laws preventing us
from getting the game we want, permits
required for wood, fishing, hunting
Possible causes of changes
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Disruption of caribou migration due to
development (pipeline)
Effects of pollution of the north on the interior no say in decisions – on the Arctic Council for
example
Addition – the small road from Red Dog to the
port has an impact on the caribou – they will stay
and not cross the road for up to 2 weeks so that
they are way up. Recommended stopping all
vehicles when the caribou where there; it worked
but then they stopped the policy.
Ideas for action: promote
traditional values
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More listening to elders
Teaching and engaging youth to be caretakers of
the ecosystem - culture camps, summer trips out
on the land with village kids
Bring kids into this kind of discussion
Provide opportunities for people to be in
teaching and learning roles
Addition – integrating traditional values into the
school curriculum, tribal policies. More control
by tribal government, use of immersion programs
in schools
Ideas for action
 Preserve
knowledge
– sharing of knowledge now
Have western medicine look into use of
traditional medicines, but only if the
intellectual property rights are protected
 Use healthy practices
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– wash hands
– wash store-bought vegetables, fruit
– filter water
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Addition – need a mechanism to protect
indigenous people’s traditional knowledge.
Intellectual property rights.
Addition – in our area traditionally we didn’t have
vegetables and we lived on meats and broths. If
you wash meat too much, you wash away the
nutrition. We have traditional ways of being
healthy and we need to relearn what is safe and
not safe (e.g. use of ashes in outhouse and moss
to help it decay instead of expensive purchased
systems)
Ideas for Action
 Use
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traditional medicines
spruce bark tea
grizzly bear fat
spruce pitch
spruce inner bark
plants (stinkweed) for rashes; chips
use of boiled waters from stream
use traditional healing center at Anchorage
Native hospital
 Q:
what do we mean by “chips”?
 Addition – bear fat is also a traditional
delicacy
 Addition – traditional sweats and herbs
used for cleansing – getting chemicals
back out of our bodies
Ideas for action: educate
ourselves, the world
 Learning
from elders
 Seeing the environment as a whole;
bringing together piecemeal western
science
 Don’t sacrifice traditional knowledge,
but get western education
 Addition – integrate western
education and traditional knowledge
Ideas for Action
 Get
government to say what they left on
or put in the land
 State, feds need to understand all
changes happening at once - affecting
Native way of life.
 Act on years and years of resolutions
 Get a seat on the Arctic Council!
 Addition – big discussion about the Arctic
Council at the last TCC Annual
Convention. But it costs so much to go all
over the world.
Ideas for action
 Look
carefully at animal, fish
condition; wash vegetables, fruit
 Fence off dump (need money to
build)