A Northern Moment: Tackling Yukon Climate Change

Across Yukon, communities have found creative solutions to tackle climate change. Through the Government of Canada's Indigenous Community-Based Climate Monitoring Program, a collaborative climate monitoring initiative is being led by Carcross/Tagish First Nation and Tsay Keh Dene.

Transcript

Text on screen: Minister of Northern Affairs Daniel Vandal and MP Larry Bagnell joined Yukon Indigenous leaders for a roundtable discussion on their Climate Monitoring Initiative

Honourable Daniel Vandal, Minister of Northern Affairs: The Government of Canada is pleased to have provided $494,000 for this important project. Many of these projects incorporate climate science and traditional indigenous knowledge shared by elders to find ways to adapt and maintain traditional ways of life.

Marlene Doyle, Manager, Indigenous Community-Based Climate Monitoring Program, Crown Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC): This project provides a powerful example of how science and indigenous ways of knowing can come together to really enable a holistic understanding of climate change impacts while supporting youth as leaders and champions in addressing the climate challenge.

Mike Tilson, Chief Executive Officer, Chu Cho Environmental: We might understand what change will happen, but we really don't understand from a territorial perspective how those changes will manifest. So long-term that's what this project is about. That's what these weather stations will enable. This project is about looking at the direct knowledge from Nation citizens who have the experience of living in these territories for decades.

Jewel Davies, Youth Climate Change Ambassador, Carcross/Tagish First Nation:

And I think this is extremely important because then it connects us to our indigenous values, which I think that is our systems need to evolve on which include whole personhood, purpose, belonging, confidence, respect, and relationships the way that we see ourselves in relationships with not only ourselves and others, but also the way that we see ourselves in relationship with the land.

We need to educate people and reconnect people with this idea because I think that that is honestly the most effective way forward to deal with a climate crisis and also provide reconnection to our citizens.

But now that I have this different understanding and I feel like wholeness—honestly, I feel purpose and belonging as a young First Nations person and I feel I have responsibility and it's honestly just flipped my whole world view and I am just passionate to share this feeling I guess with other young First Nations people because I believe that it's in them. We all care about our traditional practices deeply and we all care about our traditional lands and I think that's a collective value that we all share that we're just not talking about enough.

Honourable Daniel Vandal, Minister of Northern Affairs: I respect the work that you're all doing that I've seen today and I know that our partnership will continue for a long time.

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