Research Profile - Staying Connected to a Changing Land
Dr. Chris Furgal
A researcher at Trent University studies environmental and cultural changes in the Arctic and their impact on health
As talk of climate change heats up, all eyes are on the north. We are already beginning to see some troubling changes in the Arctic – shifting ice patterns, longer growing seasons. But what impact will these and other changes have on the people who call the Arctic home? Dr. Chris Furgal of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, is part of a wide-reaching project to find out.
According to Dr. Furgal, any potential or perceived threat to the daily way of life in the north could represent a threat to health.
At a Glance
Who – Dr. Chris Furgal, Departments of Indigenous Studies and Environment and Resource Studies/Science, Trent University
Issue – Environmental and cultural changes in Arctic communities and their impacts on the health of northern residents.
Approach – Dr. Furgal has been conducting workshops and interviews with Elders and other community experts across northern Canada to document the environmental changes taking place and identify their implications for health.
Impact – Based on his findings and data collected through large projects like the Inuit Health Surveys, Dr. Furgal will help identify the ways that northerners’ health is being affected by climate and cultural change. He and his colleagues will use this information to inform adaptation and health promotion strategies for people living in northern communities.
"In many northern communities, residents have an extremely strong connection to the land. And not just through the foods from the land and sea and fresh water environments that still make up a significant component of their daily diet, but also through opportunities for physical activity and getting out on the land."
With the help of funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Dr. Furgal and his team have been working with Elders and other community experts to learn more about the changes that are already happening in the northern environment. So far, community residents have reported a variety of changes in environmental conditions, including those related to the biodiversity of the region.
"The changes in the thickness and stability of the ice mean that ice-dependent Arctic species such as ringed seals and polar bears are being found in different locations than they used to," explains Dr. Furgal. "Also, with increased annual temperatures and shifts in the growth of vegetation and other food species for some animals, they're starting to see an introduction of new species, such as moose, close to or just above the tree line."
Changes in the ice and the predictability of the seasons have also made traveling across the land more challenging, and in some cases riskier for hunters. Dr. Furgal's interviews with community experts have revealed concerns about increases in the number of accidents, drownings and hunters getting caught in storms.
"But there are a number of confounding factors, because environmental change is not the only form of change taking place within these communities," explains Dr. Furgal. "There are a larger number of people engaged in wage-earning employment and therefore spending less time out on the land. So when they are going out, they may know less than their parents or grandparents did in order to be able to respond to hazardous, less predictable or more extreme conditions."
To help understand some of this complexity, Dr. Furgal and his colleagues at the Nasivvik Centre at Laval and Trent University (the CIHR funded NEAHR Centre focused on Inuit environmental health in the north) are using data from a series of projects including the Inuit Health Surveys.
"We are now developing and gaining access to a robust database that allows us to try and investigate the multifactoral nature of these issues," says Dr. Furgal.
For example, they are beginning to see that not all northern households are similarly 'at risk'. Some are adapting to the environmental and social changes better than others.
"Those households that have access to greater economic resources and therefore a variety of different forms of hunting equipment in terms of types of machinery and transportation equipment seem to be able to adapt to changes going on in the environment more effectively and still maintain a level of household food security from the country (traditional) foods side of the equation," says Dr. Furgal.
Now, Dr. Furgal and his colleagues are trying to link the information they've collected from their collaborations with community expert to the results of the Inuit Health Surveys to create as complete a picture as possible of the social and environmental changes that are affecting northerners' health. Based on this picture, they plan to help inform strategies and programs to support residents' adaptation needs in this changing environment.
"We've described many of the relationships between the changes that are going on in the environment and the impacts that they are having on health," says Dr. Furgal. "very soon it will be time to focus on what this information means in terms of health promotion strategies, public education programs or policy development initiatives."
"We're just on the cusp of some very exciting multidisciplinary health research in northern regions that is starting to grapple with the many different kinds of change taking place simultaneously and what implications they have for health."
-- Chris Furgal