Grant: Discovery Horizons

Food security is a significant socio-economic challenge in Inuit communities yet central to Inuit culture and wellbeing. Seabirds, such as eider ducks, are harvested widely by coastal Inuit communities for meat, eggs and feather down. However, climate warming is greatest in the Arctic and impacting the accessibility of game to harvesters. Climate-induced early sea-ice breakup benefits eider reproduction, allowing for increased food availability and nesting opportunities. Yet earlier sea-ice melt is also increasing nest predation by polar bears that become stranded ashore, reducing not only the number of eggs to harvest, but imposing serious risk to harvesters. To anticipate consequences of climate change, harvesting, and predation on eider abundance and distribution requires the co-development of an interdisciplinary project that aims to characterize how variation in the environment, increased risk, and the socioeconomics of harvesting under these altered conditions interact at a local scale to affect the availability of eiders and hence community food security. Our objectives are to: place Inuit priorities and leadership at the core of our work through a community-based participatory approach rooted in Inuit values; grow partnerships between northern communities (Kinngait Hunters and Trappers Organization) and organizations (Nunavut Wildlife Management Board – J. Akearok), academia (Drs. C. Semeniuk – predictive-ecology modeller; D. Henri – ethnobiologist; V. Nguyen – human dimensions expert), and government (Dr. G. Gilchrist – seabird ecologist) that capitalize on our long-term seabird datasets; build on existing collaborative working relationships with the community of Kinngait in Inuit Nunangat; and generate innovative modelling approaches that blend diverse sources of biological information and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) to generate knowledge relevant to Inuit. Specifically, we propose to interweave the ecology of predator-prey interactions with fuzzy cognitive mapping of IQ in social-ecological predictive modelling. Over the course of 5 years, HQP (1MSc, 1PhD, 1PDF) will be trained in interdisciplinary epistemologies and mentored in decolonized, co-production approaches that recognize Inuit rights to self-governance. Our ultimate goal is to work with the Kinngait community to identify potential approaches to maintain eider resources in face of costs, risks, and benefits while accounting for the growing uncertainties created by climate change.