Understanding climate, adapting to change: indigenous cultural values and climate change impacts in North Queensland

McIntyre-Tamwoy, Susan, Fuary, Maureen, and Buhrich, Alice (2013) Understanding climate, adapting to change: indigenous cultural values and climate change impacts in North Queensland. Local Environment, 18 (1). pp. 91-109.

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Abstract

Many authors have suggested that Indigenous communities are especially vulnerable to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change, yet there remains a paucity of fine-grained geographic data on the particular impacts of climate change on specific places and on local communities, especially Australian Indigenous communities. While there are some recent studies being undertaken with Australia's Torres Strait Island people, our research takes up the issues of vulnerability and resilience with two Indigenous communities from different environments on the mainland in North Queensland. They are the Aboriginal peoples of the rainforest and reef environments of the Wet Tropics and the Aboriginal people of the discontiguous rainforest, grasslands, dry forests and marine environments of Cape York. The results demonstrate variability in their understandings of climate change and in their capacities to anticipate and manage its impacts, while at the same time illustrating some common held themes about environmental and cultural values, observed environmental change, attributions of cause and effect, and of climate in general.

Item ID: 23280
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1469-6711
Keywords: indigenous perceptions; climate change impacts; aboriginal communities; sea level rise; resilience; traditional knowledge
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Date Deposited: 05 Sep 2012 02:46
FoR Codes: 16 STUDIES IN HUMAN SOCIETY > 1601 Anthropology > 160104 Social and Cultural Anthropology @ 50%
21 HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY > 2101 Archaeology > 210199 Archaeology not elsewhere classified @ 50%
SEO Codes: 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9603 Climate and Climate Change > 960311 Social Impacts of Climate Change and Variability @ 50%
95 CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING > 9503 Heritage > 950302 Conserving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage @ 20%
97 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 970105 Expanding Knowledge in the Environmental Sciences @ 30%
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