Alaska Native Science CommissionInterior Regional Meeting Summary

Changes Possible causes of changes Ideas for action

www.nativeknowledge.org

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

Addition – 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.

Changes

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

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 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)

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

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.

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– 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 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

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

Addition – 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.

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

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 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

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– wash hands– wash store-bought vegetables, fruit– filter water

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 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)