About Our Project

It is argued that enhanced resilience or ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions is also a way to improve the status of health and well-being in communities in an integrated way (considering the interconnected nature of social-cultural-political and economic systems). Therefore, this project proposes to investigate the role of three key elements associated with community resilience and health (social networks, traditional knowledge and language, governance and institutional capacity) in the context of the changing nature of caribou-community relationships in Arctic Indigenous communities. The selection of caribou for this study is based on the interests of the Aboriginal project leads and the common and central role that caribou plays in community and individual health and well-being in most northern Indigenous regions.

Background

This project is led by a network of aboriginal organizations across northern Canada including the Arctic Athabaskan Council, Dene Nation, Gwich’in Council International, Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami as well as Trent University and the University of Alberta. Together we are working on a climate change adaptation project stressing the human ecology of caribou.

The decision to look at people and caribou came as a result from a meeting held in Inuvik, NWT in October 2007. This project was submitted to IPY for approval and funding in 2008. In February 2009, the proposal was accepted as an IPY project and funding in the amount of $1.8Million was approved over the two year time.ine. It is our intention to use this research project in our ongoing involvement in implementation of the UNFCCC.

Community Involvement