#Northwest naturals ze dried dog food update

Ultimately, relocation to a new village site or to an existing village or regional hub may be the only options as villages disappear or become uninhabitable due to climate change-related erosion or flooding. Relocation to urban areas makes it even harder to maintain subsistence activities and networks. Additionally, as subsistence opportunities decline, it may become cost prohibitive to stay in the village, encouraging residents to relocate to hub villages and Anchorage (Pete 2010). Older generations may no longer be able to teach young people about subsistence harvesting and processing. Hunters esteemed for their abilities and willingness to share food may find their roles changing as the landscape changes. When individuals and families are unable to procure subsistence foods, traditional sharing becomes more difficult. Some of the most damaging effects of climate change in Alaska have been the social and cultural impacts for subsistence users. For rural Alaskans, including Alaska Natives with cultural and spiritual ties to the land going back millennia, and non-Natives who choose to live a self-sufficient lifestyle far from stores, cash-paying jobs, and the state’s few roads, subsistence is part of what defines them. Harvesting, processing, and eating wild foods contributes to the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of individuals and communities. Subsistence foods connect people to their culture and their environment. In Alaska, the word “subsistence” is not just about getting food for nutrition but represents a way of life and a relationship with wild resources. Winter storm surges, also linked to climate change, erode coastlines, make travel difficult by land or sea, and destroy cabins and camps used for subsistence activities (USDA Northwest Climate Hub 2023). In some northern communities, ice cellars are melting, making long-term storage of traditional foods more difficult. With warming temperatures, early breakup and late freeze-up create poor ice conditions, making access to hunting areas for important subsistence species more dangerous (Brown et al. On land, thawing permafrost impacts roads, which have to be continually rebuilt. In the Alaskan Arctic, the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas have undergone changes in ocean circulation, currents, water temperatures, and nutrient availability, with serious impacts on fisheries. 2022).Īlthough Northern communities have a deep cultural history of adapting to change, they are highly vulnerable to the impact of rapid climate change. It describes how warming air temperatures, shrinking sea ice, shorter periods of snow cover, increased wildfires, rising levels of precipitation, and changes in animal abundance and migration patterns profoundly affect the safety, food security, health, economic wellbeing and cultural traditions of Alaska Natives and other Arctic residents (Druckenmiller et al.

#Northwest naturals ze dried dog food update

The Report Card, an annual update on the state of the Arctic, shows in detail how climate change is transforming the icy, snowy Arctic into a warmer, wetter environment. Storms like these are becoming more frequent and impact people’s access to and storage of traditional subsistence foods.Ī typhoon, smoke from wildfires, and increasing rain are not what most people imagine when thinking of the Arctic, yet these are some of the climate-driven events included in the National Ocean Atmospheric Administration’s 2022 Arctic Report Card. Aerial view of the Arctic coast after Typhoon Merbok, leaving behind destroyed structures, debris, and eroded coastline.